Haley's Cancer Journey

On October 27 a piece of our hearts were broken. Our beautiful, kind and loving Haley Ann left us just 17 months after her diagnosis. She did not like the battle ideology for cancer, and never liked to call herself a warrior so I will not use it now. What I will say is that she had a zest for life and it carried her through all of her adventures for the last year and a half. She lived well and made sure those around her did as well. We will miss her spark, her smile that lit up a room and her tenacity. Rest easy, pumpkin. We love you forever.

We are taking some time together as a family to grieve. We appreciate all of your messages but we may not respond.

Update as of Oct 19, 2023.

On Thursday of last week we spoke to Dr Le and made the heartbreaking decision to transition Haley to hospice care. Her cancer has begun growing very aggressively and there are no more treatment options available for her at this time. Haley was moved to McKenny Creek Hospice earlier this week and has been taken care of by the amazing staff there. She is pain free and comfortable, which is all we can ask for now.

Her tumor sample was tested by foundation medicine in the summer and, unfortunately came back with no targetable mutations. We are glad we did the testing so now we know for sure that we did absolutely everything we can. Dr Le summed it up by saying that we now have the technology to find the mutations that cause different cancers, but not the science to know how to fight them... yet.

Jeremy, Liz and Hannah are all taking time off work to be with Haley and to grieve. If you can, please consider donating or sharing to help us continue to be off work at this horrible time.

Much love, the DusTams.

**edited to add: Haley's tumor sample will be sent to Foundation Medicine by her oncology team. We will not have to travel. The $3500-$7000 is for the test itself.

Anything raised over and above the cost of the test will go to Haley's bucket list items.

Hi, we are Liz and Jeremy and we are parents to two amazing 20 year old kiddos, Hannah and Haley.

In June of 2022, our lives turned upside down when Haley was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. Since then our lives have been full of appointments, chemo, emergency visits, all the while trying to inject as much joy as we can and embrace life. Haley's specific mutations mean that she has less options for treatment, and we are now onto the second line of chemo drugs, possibly moving to the third sooner than we hoped.

There is no known cure for this cancer, but there options to keep the cancer at bay for as long as we can. Part of pin pointing those options is having her tumor sequenced in the states through a company called Foundation Medicine. We are working with her oncology team to make this happen, but the cost is significant. It is between CAD$3500-7000 for the test. We are waiting to hear from them exactly how much it will cost, but for now we are asking for support in raising $4000 to cover the minimum cost.

Whatever support you can offer helps, be it a donation or sharing this on social media. We appreciate all of you from the bottom of our hearts.