Kick Cancer's Butt, Natalie!!!

Natalie is a young, vibrant new mom who recently moved to Minneapolis with her fiance, Joe, and their 8 month old son. She is now facing a lymphoma diagnosis and is in need of help to continue to care for her family as they navigate this new battle. She will be out of work for the duration of her treatment and Joe will likely have to miss a significant amount of work as well to get her to appointments and to take care of their baby.

(A photo of Natalie's most recent scan - the area circled in green is the lymphoma surrounding her heart and lungs)

(Natalie, Joe, and baby)

---

On January 10, Natalie began having severe pain in her shoulders and weakness in her arm. Assuming she had just slept on it poorly, she tried to push through. After several hours of suffering and increasing pain, Natalie decided to go to urgent care. She figured they would just send her home with a muscle relaxer. However, her vitals and the combination of her symptoms had doctors concerned that she might be experiencing pain from a heart problem. They decided to keep her overnight to do some more testing and imaging.

It was during these diagnostic tests that a large mass was discovered in Natalie's chest. Her doctor sat down and informed her of this information and showed her the pictures. He said he was pretty confident it was a lymphoma but would need to take tissue samples to figure out exactly what they were dealing with.

So right now all she knows is that she has cancer, but no specifics on the type, the stage, or the treatment to come. It will likely include several months of some combination of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. We will know more soon.

What we DO know now is that cancer is not only emotionally and physically demanding, but it's also financially crippling. With Natalie being unable to work and Joe likely having to drastically reduce his hours or leave his job, the family is going to be struggling to meet basic needs for themselves and their infant son! We are asking for donations to help with:

Thank you so much! Everything helps - donations, shares, prayers, well wishes, etc!