May Maggie Rest In Peace

Please go to this NEW link to donate to help with expenses and memorials:

https://gofund.me/9630e54e

This is the final update to Maggie’s brave story.

On August 16, at approximately 8:30 pm, my dear Gosia took her final breaths, and ended a 3-year battle with this horrific disease.  I was with her, along with her parents, my son Jonathan, and his fiancé Halie. She died peacefully in her sleep, and without pain.

Her parents and I are are eternally grateful for everyone who donated- looking for the miracle that could not happen. The thoughts, prayers, karma, notes of encouragement, etc. we’re heartfelt and kind. Thank you so much.

I am attempting to refund all donations from this GoFundMe campaign, but this is proving to be difficult because GoFundMe has already issued payments.

What is most likely to happen is that we move all donations from this campaign over to the other campaign, and we will issue refunds to those who have donated to both campaigns.

If anyone has any special requests or wishes a refund from this campaign, please use the message system in GoFundMe to provide instructions to me. I certainly do not want to profit from your generosity. Thank you all!

————————-

I have retained the other two original texts of this fundraiser below since I think this effort is worth memorializing.

Update written on August 10th, 2022: Within 24 hours, friends, families and strangers saw

Hope in Maggie’s story, and wanted to share in every effort to extend her life.  We raised about $30,000 in a very short time.  Humanity is amazing. The capabilities of humans to share compassion

and donate money to help others is inspiring. We want to see that miracle- even if that miracle is for someone else. Perhaps you lost a loved one to this horrific disease, or perhaps you are just offering up good karma to the world. Whatever your reasons, Gosia’s parents and I were touched, and brought to tears by your boundless generosity and words of support.

However, I am sad to say that we must bide our time for the next miracle.  After extensive discussions with her doctors, they have advised that there is nothing more to be done.  Too many systems have failed. Too many complications have accumulated. The “Miracle Drug” is no longer an option, and would actually tend to shorten her already short life even further.

It is now best that we provide Maggie a comfortable and loving situation for her remaining days. While she is not as talkative now, she is still laughing, she jokes, and she exhibits frustration and anger with her situation.  She has moments of true clarity, and other times where pain medications rob her of what makes her Gosia.  I want to cherish those times of clarity together with her. I will be her side.

I will be refunding all of your generous gifts, since we won’t be using this drug. I will set up a memorial fund when the time is appropriate. Thank you all. Your love is real.  Dave, Stan and Grace.

———original fundraiser text is below————-

Hi, my name is Dave Gaskill. I am engaged to marry Maggie (Gosia) Kwiecien on September 16th, 2022. Maggie and I (and more recently our cat, Hamster) have been living a happy, active and rewarding life together -despite her battling a nasty stomach cancer for the past 3 years.

We were happily planning our wedding for the past few months, but within the past few weeks, cancer has dropped a hammer on Maggie’s health, and our dreams of a life together. She has been hospitalized since July 24th, and the pain and related symptoms have escalated tremendously in a very short time.

We were looking forward to being part of a immunotherapy clinical trial in New York City, and were 1 week away from getting screened and accepted into that trial, until her hospitalization put a stop to that.

Our lead doctor-the amazing Doctor Samuel Klempner- has indicated that he could prescribe the drug being used in the trial, and has submitted that recommendation to our insurance company. Our hope is that they will approve this treatment, but it is  not very likely.

This is why I am appealing to the generosity of everyone reading this now- the cash price of this treatment is $38,000 per dose. Maggie and I are capably of covering these costs for a few weeks, but we will soon be digging deep into our savings.

This treatment has a better than 50% success rate, and can potentially reverse and shrink the recent cancer growth and extend her life considerably.  She has all the “markers” in her cancer cells that are used to target these new types of treatments.

I love her and will do anything for her. I would appreciate a little help. Thank you.

Dave