HELP KATIE & HER FAMILY

Katie is 35. In 2020 Katie was having major anxiety and depression and mood swings like crazy. She went to the doctor and was put on medication , nothing worked. One morning she woke up and the whole left side of her face was swollen out, HUGE. She went to their family doctor and they said she had such a bad infection behind her eye that she needed to go to the ER. The ER immediately started treating her for the “infection”. One doctor decided to have a CT scan done to see just how bad the infection was. There was no infection, it was cancer. Papillary Thyroid Cancer, the “good” kind. She had her thyroid taken out and underwent radioactive iodine treatment. The treatment wrecked complete havoc on her body, especially her liver. Katie still has active cancer in a lymph node in her neck and behind her breastbone. The treatment has done so much damage to her body that she is now in need of a liver transplant. As of right now she can use a living donor. She’s unable to withstand anymore radioactive iodine, her body just can’t take it. The cancer doctor wants to hold off as long as he possibly can to do another cancer surgery because she will never be able to talk or to swallow normally again. That was a big thing with the first surgery too because the cancer had wrapped itself around her vocal cords. If we can get Katie the liver transplant her body will become stronger and she won’t have to continuously go have acites drained. The acites hurts her (it pushes on everything) and the draining of it hurts her ( she now has much scar tissue that they have to go through now). Katie and Elijah have been married 8 years. She has three children. Nathan 14, Lylah 6 and Noah 4.

Katie and Elijah only dated like 3 weeks before they got married and are still very much in love with each other. Elijah is the only one working and he works every hour he possibly can. They were hit a few weeks ago on one of the back roads coming home from a doctors appointment and their van was totaled.

The health insurance company finally approved for Katie to have a transplant. She was told that their out of pocket would be no less than $15,000. They just don’t have that.

Katie is on a ridiculous amount of medication and the copays help but some are still very expensive and a few of them she’ll be on for the rest of her life due to not having a thyroid. We also learned during this whole thing that there are parathyroids. Each person has about 8 and one of their jobs is to deal with the calcium in your body. The doctor was only able to save one of Katie’s during surgery and “replant” it. She had a 50/50 chance of it to work. It did not.

Please donate any amount that you can afford. This young family needs all the help they can get.

If you or anyone you may know has a contact for a Papillary Thyroid Cancer Foundation that helps with needs, PLEASE let us know!

Donations that help with food, home, or medical bills. Organ donation, etc...any information is greatly appreciated.

Prayers, Positive thoughts, and Good vibes are always a wonderful way to give support if you can't afford a monetary one.

For more information on this type of cancer, Click the link below.

https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/diseases-conditions/thyroid-cancer-papillary-carcinoma

Thank you