Healing Fund for Heather Shell

**This fundraiser is copied over from YouCaring. Heather has received so much support through YouCaring (and outside of it) with over $10,000 and countless encouraging messages and prayers. We are aiming to raise another $10,000 to help support her while she tries to get a job and get insurance coverage and for all the things that insurance does not cover. Thank you for your continued support and words of encouragement**

In August 2017, Heather was diagnosed with a Stage 3 melanoma at 29 years old. Her treatment commenced with a surgery to remove the melanoma, followed by the removal of a set of lymph nodes. After the months of healing from those two undertakings, she has begun a year of immunotherapy treatment and lymphedema therapy. Being young and healthy up til that point, Heather was pretty blindsided by the amount of medical expenses that she was responsible for covering, even with her insurance. Even though she can now plan better for long term medical costs associated with cancer and all the treatment and surveillance looming ahead of her, she is just about as stretched fiscally as a girl can be.  

We, her sisters, have convinced her to let us share her circumstances and reach out for help if anyone is looking for a way to support her practically. The strain of work/treatment balance has been pretty intense, since every hour of work counts towards covering the treatment that takes up so much time, pushing through ten hour work days followed by long days at clinics and infusion stations. We're hoping that even a little bit of additional funds to go towards hospital bills can relieve some of the mental and emotional strain that comes with hauling through an already traumatic experience with the baggage of student loans, a mid-level museum job, and ever-incoming envelopes from the U of M Medical System!  A few people have specifically asked if there's a way to help her manage the extra burden, so we thought this would be the simplest way to connect with her family and friends, and invite you guys to chip in a bit if you have it and want to. So many of you have been absolutely astonishing in your support already - prayers, Masses offered, gifts, cards, words of encouragement and hearts of sympathy. We'll for sure make it no matter what, but this is one more way for us to advocate for our dearest middle sister and try to lighten her load any little bit. We are so humbled and grateful to be walking with her and to have so many people bearing all of us up.  One step at a time!