Emma's Warriors

6 months ago when drinking a mimosa on Easter and I experienced chest pain weirdly. So after mentioning it to my dr. she did my regular 6 month bloodwork, my white cell count was elevated but not enough to raise any alarm bells and they chalked up the alcohol sensitivity to "lady of a certain age changes".  Well the chest pain when drinking any kind of alcohol continued, in May all of a sudden I started to have breathing problems which they did a chest xray which was clear and they did breathing tests and chalked that up to my dormant asthma coming back, again due to hormonal changes. gave me a steroid shot and sent me home with a new nebulizer and steroid nebulizer meds. it seems to get a little better and more manageable, however repeated bloods kept showing a high white cell count that kept getting higher, which was puzzling them.  At my regular 6 mo check in August again they repeated the bloodwork and yet again it was higher than in May. So they did a bunch more blood tests and all was normal, still puzzled they said here try antibiotics and we will repeat labs in 1 week, well the WBC did not come down.  On to the Chest Cat scan with contrast, only to find a mediastinal mass and enlarged lymph nodes. Turns out a rare symptom of lymphoma, is lymph node pain when drinking alcohol. Dr sent me immediately to Duke Cardio thoracic surgery and looped in Oncology, Pet scan and Biopsy to follow to receive the devastating news that I had Hodgkin's Lymphoma. CANCER!  The fear that that word instills in a person when you here is nothing short of taking your breathe a way for a brief moment before your mind goes a million directions wondering, now what do we do?  Having lost a dear friend to cancer recently I began to panic, how do I tell my kids, and furiously began to research things about my cancer.  Thankfully of all cancers, this one is curable, so they say anyway and has a 95% 5 yr survival rate.  I had to take a leave of absence from my job if I am going to fight this the way I need to. So I started the process of doing that and setting up my house for all the chaos that is about to ensue. I had to tell my beloved chorale family that I couldn't sing with them this season and possibly next season too as I fight through chemo.  So here we are today October 16th and chemo starts in 3 days. My kids and husband have been incredibly supportive and my champions, along with so many other family members and friends. 

My dear friend started a meal train account and this account to help us financially and for meals while we navigate through this health crisis on one income.  I am not one to ever ask for help from anyone, matter of fact I would rather struggle than ask for help...but here I am humbling myself to ask for your generosity to help us through this.  Any help, be it a meal, a phone call, text, card, words of support, or a financial donation..its all appreciated and there are no words that i can even say other Thank you to my support network, family, friends, my tribe...I am truly humbled at the outpouring of love and support thus far and we are just starting this journey. 4-6 months of intense aggressive chemo every 2 weeks, 4 drugs infused over 3 hrs each time ahead, and they 30 radiation treatments after that.

So Thank you ..I am truly blessed and grateful to have such amazing people in my life!

******We shut off the meal train donation portion as they were charging a 5% fee, this platform will not charge a fee. ****