Help Kaylee Kick Cancer!

Hi everyone,

For those of you that don't know me, my name is Kara, and I am starting this GoFundMe on behalf of my best friend, sister, and hero Kaylee. I don't just use those words now due to her diagnosis; anyone that knows us knows that I have been obsessed with her since she was born. She is quite literally who I would aspire to be, even at only 22 years old.

I want to start out by thanking you for taking the time to read about what has been the most brutal few weeks of our lives. Many of you have reached out and asked how you can support our family. Asking for help is not something that comes naturally to us, but we are not naive and understand that Kaylee is going to need a lot of financial support coming up. We would like to put this out there so that finances are the last thing she has to worry about, and her focus can just be on putting cancer in her rearview!

Now for the backstory of the past few weeks:

It was June 14th, 2023. We knew she had been at the hospital for chest pains. We also knew that the same week she had located several lumps all over her body, but had not yet been fit in for an ultrasound appointment. (She didn’t have an established family doctor yet, as she had left home in BC to move to Calgary in March.)

The minute Kaylee called crying from the hospital informing us they had found lesions in her lungs was what we thought would be the scariest day of our life. Mom and I dropped everything immediately and drove overnight to Calgary, and our Dad booked a flight the next morning. We were wrong though, that wasn't the scariest or the worst day... it kept getting worse. By the end of that day, the hospital had found more lesions - in her liver, heart, and brain. Absolutely not what anyone could ever have wanted to discover. We knew then that there was a high likelihood of cancer, but there were a ton more tests to be done first, and what seemed like a cruel lifetime of waiting.

CT scans, MRIs, biopsies, and a lot of anxious waiting led us to a diagnosis we could have never imagined. Stage 4 Metastatic Melanoma.

A relief compared to some of the other possible diagnoses, but is that any consolation prize? At 22 years old, just starting a new life, in a new city? To say that cancer is cruel would be an understatement.

Kaylee very well may be one of the toughest people I know. Though she is my baby sister, she has always been who I want to be when I grow up. Through this battle, she has exemplified more positivity and strength than we could have ever imagined. She is a shining light to so many around her and continues each day to make us so proud with her strength and amazing outlook.

There is a long road ahead of our girl. She began chemo/immunotherapy treatment on June 29th. The first of many IV pokes she will be facing over the next 2 years. She will be going for infusions every 2 weeks for this first protocol for the next 3 months initially. There will also be copious amounts of doctor's appointments, scans, bloodwork, and potential side effects to contend with.

We have spoken to her team, and they told us that during treatment, Kaylee will be unable to work. There is a very small possibility of her going back to work part-time in the future, however, it wouldn’t be at least until she’s finished the first set of drugs 12 weeks from now, and they are able to re-assess all of the above (or it may not be at all). There are just too many variables that could affect that, and it's too soon to tell. As I mentioned above, our hope, for now, would be that Kaylee's focus solely be on beating cancer, settling into this 'new normal', and not stressed about facing the financial aspects alone. It goes without saying that we as a family will do whatever possible to support her, and we hope she knows and feels just how loved she truly is.

If you have taken the time to read through all this, thank you again. We will try to post some updates as much as we can! - Kara

#KayleesKrew