Help Peyton KICK Cancer in the OVARIES!

Hello Everyone,

We’re Mackenzie Gaultier and Chelsea Kozak. We’ve started this GoFundMe for Peyton Bourgeois.

Peyton graduated high school in June of 2023 and continued on to post secondary education. She was nearly finished her practicum to complete her Vet Assistant Course and continue on to find a job in the field. Then Peyton was given the worst news. She was diagnosed with Germ Cell Ovarian Cancer in January of 2024, at the young age of 18.

A few weeks before her practicum ended she went to the hospital with abdominal pain. At this time the doctors found a very large (15x30cm) cyst in her abdomen. It was determined she needed surgery. The surgery was to remove the cyst, her right ovary and fallopian tube. The surgery was very successful and it was explained she shouldn’t have more cancer in her body.

IT was decided Peyton would have chemotherapy treatments in case any cancer cells remained. Peyton had 4 rounds of aggressive chemotherapy to complete, each round being 21 days total. During the 21 day cycle she had 7 treatment days at Boundary trails where the IV chemo would take a minimum of 4 hours to infuse. During the 84 days of Peyton’s Chemotherapy she was hospitalized twice each time being 4-5 days. Peyton was told her treatment plan has a 99% success rate. This gave everyone so much hope and calmed fears.

After chemo was complete Peyton had routine CT scans to watch for cancer reoccurrence and because her bloodwork showed her tumour marker levels were still high. It was a CT scan that showed something in her bones. She then had a bone scan that did not have clear results. This led to her having a CT led Bone Biopsy, the biopsy confirmed that her Germ Cell Ovarian Cancer metastasized to her bones. This is very rare.

It was determined the best treatment for this awful news is to do a stem cell recovery and treat her with more (different) chemotherapy. Stem cell recovery means they take stem cells from Peyton to then inject into her after chemotherapy treatment is complete. The chemotherapy she will receive after her stem cell retrieval will be very aggressive. She will need to be hospitalized for three weeks during this time. The doctors are hopeful they will retrieve enough stem cells to complete two or possibly three rounds of chemotherapy.

Peyton is the first woman in Manitoba that will be treated this way for the type of cancer she has. This treatment is more common for males with testicular cancer.

Raising money for Peyton is near and dear to our hearts because both of us (Mackenzie and Chelsea) know and can directly relate to the expense of being sick and admitted to a hospital.

Less than one year out of high school and Peyton was given a cancer diagnosis. She wasn’t given a shot to earn an income or start her adult life. She can’t work and we want Peyton to have options and not have the stress of worrying about cost involved.

This Go Fund me will be given directly to Peyton. She will be able to use it as she needs. If Peyton decides to apply to Mayo Clinic this Go Fund Me will also support the expenses involved with that.

Thank you so much to everyone who has clicked this link, read this write up, shared this link, donated money, or helped in any other way. We appreciate you all and are grateful for the support.