Help shanda beat cancer

Since April, I‘d been having problems breathing, blackouts and dizziness along with bad fatigue. I was so dizzy, I almost fell down the stairs carrying my two-year-old son. I had been to my doctor six times over a two month period and all she did was give me antibiotics to treat “bronchitis”. When that didn't work, she treated what she suspected was a deeper infection and gave me stronger antibiotics. It made things worse. Lymph nodes in my neck and groin area swelled up like balloons. This went on for two months. On Friday June 9th, I walked myself go to the ER, pushing a stroller and pausing every few steps to catch my breath for fear of passing out on the sidewalk with my two children at my side.

At check-in, my heart rate was 122 BPM, which is abnormally high and similar to the heartbeat of someone mid-run. They did every test to figure out what was wrong with me, including an X-ray of my chest, where they discovered Pericardial Effusion, where over two pints of fluid were trapped around the lining of my heart and lungs and was strangulating me from the inside. It was life threatening, cutting oxygen off to my brain and putting me at risk for heart failure. They also found a giant mass in my chest, which has been diagnosed as non-Hopkins lymphoma (the reason for the fluid). On Saturday the 10th, they placed drainage tubes into my heart to siphon off the liquid and I had a tube in my stomach for three days. On Wednesday the 14th, I was transferred to the cancer ward, where I underwent another surgical procedure to put a port into my chest for immediate chemo treatments. They told me I was stage 2-3. I am hooked up to chemo and will be for six months and am unable to work.

I’m asking for your financial assistance to ease the burden on my children, Vlad and Lydia, and partner Jake so I can heal and focus all of my energy on eliminating this cancer.