Michelle Schmidt. Kidney cancer.

Michelle was recently diagnosed with kidney cancer. This is her 2nd time with cancer and as a result will be having surgery to remove her right kidney on Tuesday, April 25th.

Michelle and her husband Tracy have been each other’s “person” since high school and have four wonderful kids. Both Michelle and Tracy are self-employed and work exceptionally hard to take care of their family, friends, and community. There is no doubt that Michelle and Tracy will work to pay every penny of the costs associated with Michelle’s surgery and recovery. As both Michelle and Tracy are self-employed and have private insurance there will be enormous medical bills that will result from this surgery.

Tracy is one of the hardest working guys and a great provider to his wife and four kids and would work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to pay off these medical bills as soon as possible, but Tracy needs to be home to support his wife and family during the long recovery. And Michelle needs to take the full amount of time prescribed by her doctors to fully recover. For those that really know Michelle, they know exactly what that means - if she isn’t working then she isn’t making money to support the family and paying the bills. Being self-employed is wonderful until you can't physically work.

I am doing this GoFundMe in hopes that Michelle will have a successful surgery and most importantly have a full recovery without the stress of paying off the debt incurred from the surgery and not return to work before she is fully recovered.

We all know how amazing Michelle and Tracy are at serving others and putting themselves last. They are the first to drop everything to help a friend, family member, or stranger. They don’t even have to think about it when asked, they just jump in and do whatever is needed to make others’ lives easier.

We also know that they never ask for help and have a hard time accepting help when it is offered.

So, let's rally together and pay it forward. Show Michelle, Tracy, and their kids how important they are to all of us. How much we want to help them during this difficult time and support them like they have supported so many others throughout their lives. Show that sometimes good things happen to good people.

Whether it's a meal, a card, a text, a gift, or a monetary donation, every little bit will help ease the stress of this already stressful situation.