Rachel Reeder memorial

My sister Rachel was coming down to her last few days with us after she has lost her tenacious battle against cancer and she had asked me to reach out for help with her end of life expenses yesterday. Unfortunately she passed this morning. She had no life insurance policies to help with any type of memorial service or burial expenses along with everything associated. Any remaining funds above and beyond the cost of covering her end of life expenses will go towards starting a living trust for her son Glenn and daughter Astrid for college.

Rachel was admitted to the hospital the week before Thanksgiving for feinting and the inability to keep food down. They determined she was having liver function issues and there was an infected pocket of bile in her liver. They did a procedure to place stints in her bile ducts so they would begin draining properly. She was back in the hospital within a week with the same issues, they determined the stints had been crushed and we're no longer working so they did a procedure to install an external drain line in her liver to drain the infection they also installed a pic line for nutrition as she couldn't eat anything orally and was down to 68lbs. At that time (early January) they noticed a shadow on her bladder and informed us but advised the main concern was the liver failure and infection and they weren't worried about the spot on her bladder at that point. They continued treating her liver infection trying to get it under control so she could go home. Two more months of battling sick in the hospital searching for a cause they discovered the shadow on her bladder was growing rapidly and scheduled a biopsy. The first week of April she had a positive biopsy result back, she had cancer again(adencarcinoma this time). They had stepped over a quarter to pick up a penny, the shadow they discounted as nothing to worry about was what was causing the issues all along.They planned a surgery for April 18th to remove the tumar they had discovered near her spine attached to her bladder and any other cancer they could remove and follow up with chemo. Upon starting the surgery they quickly determined that it was too far spread and it was too late to operate and aborted the surgery, the cancer had spread to far and fast and her abdomen was full. At that point they started working on a plan for chemo and radiation to be started immediately, there was still hope to beat this. That following Tuesday on April 24th they came back with their plan for treatment and it wasn't what we were hoping for, they deemed her terminal with roughly 30 days left with us. Her daughter's 1st birthday was the following day.

She beat terminal cancer as a child and overcame so much adversity in her life. She was told she wouldn't live to see her first birthday, then her second, then third...a few hundred surgery's and four years later she got to come home from the hospital for the first time. The neuroblastoma had crushed her spine and she was paralyzed from the waist down before she was old enough to take her first step, it never slowed her down one bit. She was deemed cured of her terminal cancer at 24 years old, this was one of the happiest days off our lives. She was told she could never become a mother and now has 2 beautiful children she is leaving behind, we received her 2nd terminal diagnosis the day before her daughter Astrid's 1st birthday. They've always said it wasn't possible and she's proven them all wrong, I wish this would be no different than all the other times she's been counted down and out. She never quit fighting and never gave up hope, it's all she's ever known. If you could find it in your heart to help her with whatever you can.

We as a family have some of the cost and aspects covered but unfortunately had very little time to try to prepare and come up with the money for her. She received her terminal diagnosis so close to her passing. We have the burial expenses paid for but that is only a fraction of the overall expenses. The expenses outside of what we have taken care of already are estimated to be $6,000-$7,000.