Kathy Hazelwood ('89 (I-1)) - Stage 4 Colon Cancer

It is with heartfelt sadness that I am sharing this post with you. I am the brother of Kathy Hazelwood (’89 - (I-1)), and I am asking for your support and assistance for her. Four weeks ago she was having extreme abdominal pain and difficulty breathing and subsequent testing found metastatic Stage IV colon cancer, which had spread to her liver. Her prognosis is not optimistic, even with chemotherapy, with a one year survival rate of only 15%. She is currently not a surgical candidate, due to the size of the tumors in her body and her increasing pain level.

As some of you are aware, after our Dad passed away from lung cancer, Kathy has spent the last 15 years as an oncology RN, providing care to cancer patients.  With sad irony, it is now our opportunity to help her. She had recently started a new job, and has exhausted her leave, is ineligible for FMLA, and will be in a leave without pay status. As a single parent to two teenagers, her primary concern is ensuring that she is able to pay for her medical insurance and medical expenses and continue to support her children.

I have established a Go Fund Me account to help her with her medical and living expenses, so she can focus on spending quality time with her children without having to worry about any financial burdens. In addition, if you would like to drop her a word of encouragement or a funny story from your time together at USMA, please email her at [email redacted] - Her responses may be slow and/or sporadic depending on how she feels.

Please grip hands with me as we support one of our own and let her know she is not forgotten.

Sincerely,

Don Hazelwood, ‘93