I'm still not comfortable discussing our current situation so, I am going to cut and paste a few things from the private section of my off road club's discussion of the situation. Please excuse my wife's grammar. Chemo, while necessary, is a very strong poison to us who, battle cancer. Memory and other mental functions are temporarily affected.
For those that wheel or want to wheel have heard me preach about joining a local club. Sometimes, it pays off when you aren't on the trails, as well.
From The Kentucky Krawlers
Reeko wrote:Folks,
I am posting this here on the paid side as I don't feel I should be the one to post it for everyone to see on the WWW.
Troy, my father and I have been trying to come up with a way to help Reed and Anita out a bit since she is in need of cancer treatments that are not currently covered under their insurance and will have to go to Huston, Texas for at least a month.
As I don't claim to know the first thing about breast cancer, I will soon be learning and would like the rest of the club to learn and help out.
So Anita and Reed have given me the green light to help organize a fundraiser and we are in the very beginning stages with nothing at all concrete at the moment.
Tentatively we are hoping to do a show and shine type fundraiser hopefully in London (I am going to talk to Bill about maybe at Advance Auto). Troy and I were talking and we are roughly targeting the weekend after Labor day to put on this event. We are thinking a show and shine/car show with no trophies, dash plaques or the like. Also, since some of us know a lot of people in the car show world we are thinking to advertise with the other car types to try and get as many people to come as possible and donate.
I would very much like feedback as we need to get this moving ASAP.
I pulled this off of the web in preparation for Anita's email to me below.
Please note Anita is very grateful to the Kentucky Krawlers!
erall Stage Grouping is also referred to as Roman Numeral Staging. This system uses numerals I, II, III, and IV (plus the 0) to describe the progression of cancer.
* Stage 0 carcinoma in situ.
* Stage I cancers are localized to one part of the body.
* Stage II cancers are locally advanced.
* Stage III cancers are also locally advanced. Whether a cancer is designated as Stage II or Stage III can depend on the specific type of cancer; for example, in Hodgkin's Disease, Stage II indicates affected lymph nodes on only one side of the diaphragm, whereas Stage III indicates affected lymph nodes above and below the diaphragm. The specific criteria for Stages II and III therefore differ according to diagnosis.
* Stage IV cancers have often metastasized, or spread to other organs or throughout the body.
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Anita Coyle Wetter
*
Reed told me what you all were wanting to do with a fundraiser. That is so nice of you to offer. Please don't feel obligated to do it. As for right now with the insurance and treatments around here we are managing very well. It is the trip to Texas that has us unsure and the fact that we are going to have to change to different insurance during open enrollment in Nov. so that I can be seen wherever I need to be seen because there are so few that treat my kind of cancer. The new insurance will have higher everything from what I can tell now.
If you all would like to do something to help with the trip to Texas and put it into a medical fund for that purpose that is fine with us. We've been saving so that when I get the ok to go that I can. I currently have turned my appeal over to the Ky Insurance Commission and waiting to hear if they can do something with the insurance company. If that doesn't come to be then the plan is to go after we change at the first of the year to another company. It may not do any good to go there, but I can always hope.
On a side note I thought I would just put it out there because I know Reed doesn't know how to say it, but you know I'm the blunt one....LOL!! I am considered terminal with being stage IV. The first oncologist even though I responded well to the chemo sent me home and told me to decide how I wanted to spend the time I had feeling good. My new oncologist says she thinks we maybe can talk a few years not months. There is no cure for me as of right now, but the hope with the all of us is that I can stay in remissions enough even though I may go through treatments for different cancers that they will discover something or that I will beat the odds. The reason I am explaining this is to tell you how thankful I am that the Krawlers have been there for Reed. He doesn't have much family and as things progress and we have the ups and downs he has people that get his mind off of things for a while at a time. Please convey my thanks to everyone for that!!!!
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Please post up with your feedback as we need to get this ball rolling now.
troybrockman wrote:As Eric has said, we WILL make this happen.
There's no quit in the Krawlers. I've seen that on the trail.
There's no quit in Anita or Reed, either.
I can only imagine the strength necessary to continue to persevere. But she has that strength. I can only imagine taking such a beautiful person as a bride, only to have the threat of loosing her to this scourge become an immediate concern. Reed's love and devotion is evident, and admirable.
I can imagine losing a good friend, and Anita is just that. But I cannot imagine doing so without putting up a fight first. That is what we will do.
Much of what lies ahead is out of our hands, but we will not set idle.
We will pray. But prayer without action, without sacrifice, without effort, will ring hollow.
We will shed tears. I will openly admit that Annette and I have already done such. Both tears of sorrow when we found out the news, and tears of joy as we have learned of the progress made.
We will get angry. Let's channel that anger into something positive. The Wetter's have, and we look to them as an example.
We ask this: Put forth the effort necessary. Work with us. Use whatever talents you have at your disposal. Give freely of all that you can.
We humbly ask this, as the Wetter's are friends to us all, asking for nothing of us, but deserving our best.
F9K9 wrote:Thanks, Eric and Troy. This is really something that you need to share with your female family members, your wife or girlfriend. IBC, or inflammatory breast, doesn't show up in mammograms. They want to change the age of starting mammograms from 40 yr old to 50 yr old women. We're lucky that a doctor, who has never had an IBC patient, picked up on her condition. She was 45 and from what we are told, it is to late to perform a mastectomy because the horse is already out of the barn door and there is no sense in closing it now. She is undergoing chemo now, every three weeks. That is to keep the estrogen level down because that is what IBC feeds off of.
Any fundraiser proceeds will be put into a medical account for her trip to MD Anderson in Houston, TX. If, that doesn't come to pass then we will insure that it goes to IBC research or for travel related expenses that the other three KY IBC patients may incur.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s9_UrVtc6c
I want to thank everyone for their support and interest whether, this comes to fruition or not.
SweetPee wrote:Wow! I am speechless, but I know one thing... I'm down to do what ever I can! I just don't know what to say about things like this. Never do! But I can tell you also that I will continue to pray every night like i have every night since I first learned about Anita's troubles.
sewerat wrote:We need to start getting our act together if we are going to do something, time is something we don't have. Some one needs to talk to Wal Mart in London if that is where we are going to have it, Wal Mart is very good for fund raisers, they will let you use there lot, plus most of the time they will also donate door prizes. I can make up the flyers once we decide what is going on, we need to get the flyers done and out there so people can make there calendars. I still have a lot of friends in the car show arena, so I will see if I can get some favors going. EVERYONE if we do nothing else in our life time we need to do this. The money we raise may mean life or death. Contact me anytime and we can work on this 859 xxx-xxxx thanks everyone Dan
Reeko wrote:Alright guys, we are tentatively scheduled at Advance Auto in London on Sept 10th thanks to Partsjockey. He also had another suggestion of Somerset's Summer Night Cruise but I am not sure we have the resources available to pull that one off at this point. Bill will have the final approval later this week but we are pretty much a go.
For anyone that wants to help out, please show up this Saturday if you can and we start coming up with a plan for the rest.
We all know people that know people so time to start calling favors.
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Reeko wrote:Ok - we are a go for Advance Auto on the 10th. Bill can arrange parking for tow rigs and trailers at the other end of the parking lot at K-Mart.
Reed - any objections if this thread gets moved to the open forum or if we start a new thread?
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Hopefully, I can get on here a little more often when, things calm down.F9K9 wrote:None, Eric. Thank you from Anita and I.Reeko wrote:.........Reed - any objections if this thread gets moved to the open forum or if we start a new thread?.....