Alice Burton's Battle
Donation protected
Let me start off by apologizing for the length of this, but some things can’t be explained in a couple of sentences. The above picture is of my dear friend Alice Burton and I would like to tell you a little bit about her journey. In February of 2012 she married the man who she thought she would spend the rest of her life with. Things were going great and they were excited to start their journey of having children and someday raising a family. In March, Alice was diagnosed with Cervical Cancer. This cancer took all of her dreams away. She needed to get a complete hysterectomy and immediately begin rounds of chemo and radiation. Before the procedure, they were able to extract a couple of eggs and freeze them already fertilized by her husband. Luckily Alice was able to beat the cancer, but still had a void of not being able to bear her own children. A couple of years passed and she started to move on with her life. Marriage was becoming a little rocky, but she wanted to do whatever possible to try and make things work. In October of 2014, Alice was diagnosed with Pre-Acute Leukemia. Going through one cancer is life changing enough, but having to endure another tragedy like this is unimaginable. Treatment for this would entail more rounds of chemo and a bone marrow transplant. Alice was not able to find a match for bone marrow, but she was able to find a cord (umbilical cord) match. This was not ideal, but it was the only option available. I find it a little symbolic that her first cancer took her chances of having children and with this second cancer a child was able to help save her. Alice stayed in the hospital for about 2 months fighting the fight of her life. She has been in and out of the hospital for months at a time for different viruses and other organ functions not working to the full capacity as they should. We knew there were going to be things happening as her body tried to get acclimated to the new marrow. During this phase of her life things were not going well with her spouse and ultimately they ended up separating. This was devastating for Alice and still is. Her only hope of having children, which looked like her, were already fertilized by her soon-to-be ex-husband. Instead of her taking all of her energy and worry about her health and getting back to a place that she can function in a normal world, she has to figure out a way to pay all of her bills without the support of a spouse and without being healthy enough to go back to work. She hasn’t been able to work since March when her transplant first took place. I have been doing my best to call these companies that are trying to take things away from her, but it is not enough. She needs some help and she needs it bad. We can all put ourselves in a time or place where we missed a couple of days of work and fell a little behind, never mind 8 plus months. Words limit my ability to express how much of a wonderful person Alice is. She has been a teacher for many years and her MANY talents and amazing qualities that she has to offer the word are limitless. After continuing to fight day in and day out she just had the extremely unfortunate news of finding out that her body is rejecting the donor. Those of you that are not aware, you only get one chance with bone marrow. We are not too sure where this leaves us. The doctors have a couple other things that they may try, but do not seem to be too optimistic about the outcome. They are not putting a time limit just yet, but did say that they would do whatever needed to make her comfortable when the time came to it. I can’t imagine hearing this news and still having to worry about a roof over my head also. So I am asking for you to dig a tiny bit into your pockets and find a way to help her out. There is no dollar amount that gives you the feeling that you feel when you give back to someone in need. We are still holding hope in our hearts that something amazing is going to happen for Alice. It is HER turn and she deserves it. Thanks for reading! If you can't donate, please please share!
Organizer and beneficiary
April Kristin
Organizer
Weymouth, MA
Alice Burton
Beneficiary