Heather Get Better! Help a mom get life saving care

My perfect, beautiful, selfless, tireless mom is all jacked up and we need your help.

Here’s the deal: She was diagnosed with a spinal tumor 10 years ago. It ate away two vertebrae so they went in, carved out what they could, and built a titanium scaffolding in her neck to replace the bone. Since then, the tumor has continued to grow and has eaten more of her spine and is pushing against her cartoid artery. In addition to the tumor, she’s been diagnosed with a degenerative bone disease called spinal stenosis that has been causing her spine to weaken and fuse together as an aggravated result of her tireless work catering. The result is relentless pain, nerve damage and loss of feeling, and a dangerous glass-house-fragile spinal system.

Who is she? You know her, everyone does. You’ve probably been fed by her. She’s probably made you laugh or blush. You’ve probably seen her dragging a wagon of breakfast burritos across a mile of beach sand (a hellish task) to feed a gaggle of junior guards or hungry groms out of the goodness of her heart. She’s this unstoppable, sailor-mouthed spitfire with an endless capacity for love and generosity. She’s had a tough go of things over the last few years (to say the least) but has still never stopped showing up for her community (her city, her surfers, her whole world), her family, and even strangers in her orbit.

When? Now it’s go time. She’s slogging through life in this incredible pain with this sword dangling over her head and still smiling and still making people smile. She needs to undergo a series of intensive spinal surgeries and radiation, and issues with insurance and medical bills have prevented us from getting her help over and over again.

Why help? Because she’d do it for you, and probably has. If you’ve ever been fed when you were hungry, seen her carry a tower of chaffers into your church or school to help your cause, if you’ve ever been held by her when it all feels like too much, now’s a good time to show her what that meant. She’s Superman. But it’s too heavy for Superman right now.

The next moves consist of getting her a hearty insurance plan for the duration of the surgeries, then moving her to Yosemite where Paka and I will take care of her and get her to physical therapy. Then back to HB where I’ll hold her hand through radiation, along with all of you. It’s been a long road, and the horizon is still very far. But we’ve always been good at roadtrips.

She loves the movie Hot Rod. You’ve probably seen her license plate that reads “I PRTY” as an homage to it. This whole ordeal has been a heavy weight on our family and in a dark, hopeless moment I found a laugh from a silly fantasy of hosting some big stupid stunt to save her like in her favorite movie. But I’ve busted my teeth too many times so in lieu of jumping the bus on my roller skates in the Northside parking lot, I’ll just be here, and I’ll ask for the help that she never would, because she’s too busy worrying about all of us.

You know as well as I do that her heart is as big as her chest. She’s spent her whole life protecting the people she loves. Let’s protect her back.