Brooke Kajdy and her husband Gabriel put out the call for help and have started a GoFundMe to help Brooke pay for a trip to the United States of America, in the hopes of taking part in a potentially life-saving drug trial.
In June of last year, Kajdy was diagnosed with stage 4 B-cell lymphoma while pregnant with their son (second child).
"I was having major pain in my knees, and I was having swelling of my gums in my mouth, two things that seem completely unrelated. I went to several doctors, four trips to the emergency room, and they all kind of told me that it was pregnancy-related," stated Kajdy.
After going back multiple times and seeing multiple doctors, she eventually made the decision to head to the foothills clinic where she was getting an antibiotic IV infusion. The doctor there was the first to recognize it was something far more serious.
"They did all kinds of different tests and found out that it was stage 4 B-cell lymphoma, that was when I was 20 weeks pregnant."
According to verywellhealth.com, a diagnosis of stage 4 lymphoma means that cancer has spread outside of the lymphatic system and into one or more organs.
The 23-year-old made the decision to continue with the pregnancy while simultaneously dealing with her cancer. Kajdy underwent a few treatments of chemotherapy before giving birth.
"I had him at 32 weeks via C-section. He went to the neonatal intensive care unit, and I continued on with higher-dose chemotherapy. Since then, I've done several rounds of chemoradiation and I've done some immunotherapies, and unfortunately, none of them have worked for me."
Without a complete response to any type of treatment, this now leads the family of four to try treatments outside of Canada.
"Our only hope is clinical trials being offered in the US, and unfortunately, this is something that we have to pay for ourselves. It may cost upwards of like $500,000 which is absolutely insane."
The companies that are running the trials typically cover the treatments themselves explained Kajdy, but you have to pay for everything else, the hospital stay, the doctors, the tests and everything in between.
The GoFundMe has picked up steam since Albertans first learned of her story. As of Thursday morning, around $50,000 had been raised.
"It makes me very emotional that all of these strangers, people I haven't spoken to in years, people I went to high school with, they're all reaching out and wanting to help support us in any way that they can."
It means the world to Kajdy that so many people want to help her have a fighting chance to have a long life with her young family and hope they can reach the total goal needed.
"I want to be here for my kids, and it's so hard knowing that might not be a possibility."
If you are interested in learning more about the GoFundMe, click HERE.
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