Anyone who has had cancer, or has seen a loved one battle cancer, knows first hand how emotionally devastating the journey can be. Watching the people you love fight for their lives is stressful and heartbreaking.
Warren and Cindy Chapley have been on this journey since July 2011, when Cindy was diagnosed with Stage 4 Cholangiocarcinoma. Cholangiocarcinoma, or, cancer of the bile ducts, is a malignant growth that forms in the ducts that drain bile from the liver to the small intestine. It is a rare form of cancer that affects one in 100,000 people, usually over the age of 65 years. This cancer is incurable and is generally managed with radiation treatment, chemotherapy and palliative care.
Cindy Chapley with her two children.
When Cindy, a young mother to two small children, found out she had cancer, she was only given less than a year to live. However, with a wonderful husband and two young children at home, this prognosis was not an option. She underwent a year of chemo which successfully shrunk the tumour. However, the tumour has started growing again and with seemingly only a few months of life remaining, the doctors have offered Cindy palliative chemotherapy.
But Cindy is a fighter. She is not ready to lay down and allow this disease to take her away from her family. She has become “her own science experiment”. She is determined to find a way, any way, to prolong her life so that she can be there for her husband and her children, who are only 6 and 8 years old.
So, with no time to lose, Cindy is going to Scottsdale, Arizona on March 17th where she will undergo treatments at the Envita Medical Centre. This centre offers cutting edge cancer treatments that are not used anywhere else in the world. They have a high success rate for treating patients in the final stages of cancer using customized cancer treatments. Cindy will be in Scottsdale for 8 to 10 weeks while Warren and the children are home in Winnipeg.
Because Cindy has not been referred by a doctor, she and her family have to foot the bill for the entire trip and treatments. Cindy and Warren have never asked for anything. They were resolved to figuring out on their own how to come up with the money, which is expected to exceed well over $100,000.
However, long time friend, Rhonda Brown-Dorosh, wanted to help, so she started a fundraising campaign. A trust fund has been set up for the Chapley family at TD bank and other fundraisers are being organized. If anyone would like more information, they can contact Rhonda at r_dorosh@live.ca
