Help Marla fight brain cancer!

Story

Quick summary: Marla survived the original surgery, but an unexpected tumor was found. She now has a new tumor that is in a really bad and dangerous spot. It cannot be operated on. It has completely paralyzed her on her left side and is continuing to grow. We need to raise funds to pay for continuous home health care, for some serious medical equipment not covered by insurance, and to go towards a handicap accessible converted van to travel in during her appointments across the country in this race to try to save her. I have included a more detailed breakdown below, but it got to be so long that I figured I should do a cliff notes version up here. Please know that we are appreciative for anything, including prayers and kind words. A donation isn’t expected, prayers are strong tools too! Just whatever you are comfortable with is all we ask. I’m sorry we haven’t updated you all sooner, we just really kept holding out hope that things would get better. It’s been really hard, but we are not giving up! Thank you.

Longer version**
Hey y’all! We waited so long to want to do one of these because, for one, we kept holding out thinking her status would improve and then secondly, it feels so icky asking for help. However, someone reminded me that Marla has so many people that would feel better if they could help. I know yal love my mom and we really have had so many wonderful people that have offered to do anything to contribute to her journey and, up until now, we have just requested prayers for her recovery and healing! We still want those prayers! But it’s now time to admit to ourselves that we’re going to need more. I’ve never done one of these so I don’t know how to estimate the need goal or anything, so just give what you can or just give abundant prayers! There is no obligation! And we are appreciative of even just the thought alone. Truly.

As you may know, Marla has been battling the devastating diagnosis of stage 4 brain cancer for almost two years now. She has been fighting it as aggressively as possible and continued exercising and working and refused to let it affect her quality of life. She has had 4 brain surgeries and removed 2 tumors. On March 26 we had yet another ablation brain surgery at Cleveland Clinic scheduled to remove a third tumor and remove the necrotic tissue left from the radiation. Most of you don’t know this, but my mom has been completely paralyzed in her left side for the past couple of months. We were told it was because of the swelling from the necrotic tissue associated with the tumor to be removed on the 26th. We made it work through me picking her up and carrying her to necessary things, but she is completely bedridden. The surgery was supposed to fix that. We had the surgery as scheduled and, because of all of your prayers, it went very well! Everything with the ablation went as perfect as could be! Unfortunately, during surgery, the surgeon discovered a new tumor in her brain that everyone had missed. This new tumor is a very bad one that has attached to her corticospinal tract at the motor functions nerve bundle; and that is the real cause of her paralysis. We have been told it is too dangerous to operate on and our best hope is to slow the growth. She is recovering from the surgery on the original brain mass and knows about the new tumor. She is very disheartened and saddened, as we all are, but she is still hopeful! You know Marla, she will always find the bright side to look towards! She is a fighter and we are not giving up! We did an emergency treatment of gamma knife radiation on the new tumor to try to at least slow the growth. She has been hospitalized the entire time and we are trying some new treatments, but she is still paralyzed and very weak. Marla can only be moved with a hoyer lift and cannot even raise her head on her own. It’s been very hard seeing her like this and working through this, so forgive us for taking time to update everyone. But she wants to get home very badly and fight however she can. We will need to hire full time health assistance as the paralysis persists and spreads. We will have to get all kinds of new medical equipment to accommodate a paralyzed adult (equipment that is not covered by insurance). Also, we will be having to travel back and forth to Cleveland clinic in Ohio, U Penn in Philly, and Duke in North Carolina frequently for her medical treatment and the last resort clinical trials she’s been approved to join. The travel and hotel stays and ubers etc. were all very hard for her to manage even before the paralysis. And expensive. It’s next to impossible now. But we are determined to fight this thing as hard and as long as we can! So she has come up with the idea of wanting a customized van for her wheelchair that we could travel across the country in for her appointments and to every place willing to help us. We’ve decided to trade our cars in to afford one, but it still won’t be enough. A converted van is expensive on its own; but finding one custom for a bedridden, handicapped person is going to be even harder and we need it asap to get this started since we are working with very limited time. Marla would have loved to make it a marketing thing with donations and a full build and something that could give back to SEMA members and the industry, but we just waited too long to ask for help and ran out of time. This fundraiser would help us get Marla home health, would set her home up to accommodate her new status, and what remains would go towards a van ready to travel in to find a cure. Plus I would really enjoy bringing her to visit family on the way in the van and see some sights since I never got to take her out of the country like she wanted. It is really hard to accept that this is where we are at with this. We kept thinking it was getting better; and the goal line just keeps getting moved further away from us. But she is a fighter, and with your help we can give it all the gas we have in these next months to try everything possible to save her.

Organizers :

Co-organized
Madison Moore and Erica Sietsma are organizing this fundraiser.