Melissa Henke's Kick Cancer's Ass Fund

My name is Sara Redenbaugh and some of you know my BFF since Kindergarten is Melissa Henke. Melissa is loyal to those around her and makes new friends literally everywhere she goes. If you do know her personally, chances are you have some kind of amazing memory with her whether it’s from grade school and beyond, Sports Medicine training days, as her coworker, her 7 years in Tahoe, as your massage therapist over the past 20 years, or maybe you just met her randomly one day and are now friends.

This August as we spent a wonderful afternoon together doing one of our favorite things, wine tasting, Melissa let me know that she had found a lump in her breast. That began the hardest chapter in our friendship. She has now been diagnosed with Invasive Mammary Carcinoma in her breast and Metastatic Breast Cancer in the axillary lymph node: Stage 2, Triple Negative Breast Cancer. Through testing and appointments she has remained strong and positive, although shocked is a good word too. She is scheduled to have a port put in and to begin her six month journey with Chemo in October.

Melissa said goodbye to her Tahoe home this year and moved into her home in the Sacramento area. This has proven to be a positive thing because of the lack of Cancer treatment in Tahoe as well as the fact that she is closer to her family and many friends, including myself! The biggest downfall that we just learned about this week is that her job that she has started down here recently does not qualify her for FMLA. As a result she will be losing all her health coverage at the end of this month (September).

She needs our help bigtime! From all the doctor appointments, treatments, the many meds that she needs, to helping her with the day to day needs of someone who will be undergoing weekly treatments and fully unable to work (car payment, utilities, food, etc…). It is time to pay it forward to someone who spent years loving us and all of our kids, giving us massages, buying us cocktails, offering up her home, walking in the AVON Breast Cancer fundraiser, cheering us up, and contributing to others’ fundraisers. Any amount that you can contribute to Melissa’s Kick Cancer’s Ass fund will be greatly appreciated and used in the way that it is intended. Please support her with lots of positive, strong thoughts and notes of encouragement. She is ready to KICK CANCER’S ASS!!!