WOW

So, if you read my last blog, let me tell you... the world feels so differently now.  When I wrote that letter I was at the lowest point I think ever in my life.  I felt that the world had literally failed us and I thought I'd be homeless at the end of the month, I thought I wouldn't be able to take care of my husband, I'm pretty sure I may have lost a few brain cells due to stress.  I had a few break downs, basically every time I got off the phone with this organization or that.  But now... now that has all changed.

It took a lot to write that letter and even more to actually post it and send it out into the world.  I nervously awaited to see the response it would get and found myself incredibly amazed.  We have had such an incredible sense of support emerge that not only has my faith in the human race been restored, but my heart feels so overwhelmingly weighted by the sense of love I've felt.

Wednesday I cried and cried. and cried.  I cried due to the fear of the unknown, I cried because I felt like a failure, I cried because I felt helpless and I cried because I felt like if I couldn't fix this... I might lose my husband and this whole fight that we've been hardly persisting through at times this last year, I felt like it might have been for nothing.  Now, I'm tearing up because I never... never in a million years expected the kind of response we've received.

Not only did people share our story and not only did complete random strangers donate to us just out of the kindness of their hearts, but an entire community has come together, for me and my husband.  My hometown of Corning California, a place I haven't lived in over six years and a place I haven't even visited since Tom was diagnosed in July of last year... but still a place I grew up in and call home, they've absolutely humbled me to my core.  One of my childhood friends and my very first Starbucks mentor and later photographer of my wedding began the ground work of a fundraiser which was an idea early Thursday evening.

By mid morning Friday, my childhood friend had secured more donations than I could even count.  By that evening a website was built by one of Tom's old Chico work colleagues: www.helptomandlaura.com and it has all the information to do with the fundraiser thus far and the links to donate to us. We have had an incredible amount of support come in donation wise, from people we know, friends of people we know, and then complete strangers.

This weekend I had planned (a month ago) a trip to take Tom to San Luis Obispo to visit his brothers and to have some genuine fun before he has to go into the hospital for a long period of time and then be stuck at home for months and unable to travel for quite awhile.  I was so excited about this trip and as it neared, so was he.  When we got the awful news about our financial situation and then the stonewall of lack of organizational support, we informed his brothers we'd have to cancel the trip due to lack of funds.  His brothers then came together and they paid for our visit.  I can truly say I have not seen Tom enjoy himself so much as he did this last weekend... at least not in the last 8 or 9 months.  I can't think of anything better and I am so incredibly happy that they made it happen for us.

Not only was it amazing for him, but while down there I kept receiving emails of donation alerts or emails of just incredibly supportive notes from people and it was seriously so ridiculously wonderful that I can't even describe it.  I have tears streaming down my face of complete and utter joy in reflecting on this. To top all of this off, I got an email today from the local Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Light the Night walk Campaign Manager... asking if Tom would accept the position of "honorable hero" for this year's campaign!

So yah, WOW. So blessed, so incredibly blessed.  This weekend with the trip and with the incredible communal support combined, is precisely what was needed for the both of us before going into this next chapter... the transplant.  So, this week we pack, pack, pack for our move that happens Saturday.  Next week Tom goes in for the pre-transplant chemo at some point.  I believe I was told either the 12th or 15th, but when I asked last week it still wasn't decided.  Tomorrow he has a bone marrow biopsy, so hopefully we find out then.

If you have in any way been one of our saving graces, thank you.

Please Help

Our Story

I’m writing this in a moment of complete desperation and also with hope that things will come together. A week after celebrating our 1 year anniversary, my husband was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) at just 25 years old. He had just finished a six month training program for his company and had worked only five days in his new official position.

Tom had been feeling really tired, dizzy, weak, and not himself. He had been travelling for work, working on his final presentation, we had been house hunting to buy our first home, and there was so much going on that we just thought it was normal. After a few weeks of this continuing, I made him go to the doctor who told us while it was unusual side effects for mono perhaps that was it. He took some blood work just in case and wrote Tom off of work for a couple of days. Two days later, Tom received a phone call from the doctor instructing him to get to the emergency room straight away as his blood levels were beyond frightening.

I was on my way to orientation for a new job when Tom called me and said he needed to go to the hospital. After five minutes of trying to figure out if this was a joke, I turned around. Within two days we had the confirmation that he had Leukemia, July 25th 2012. Our entire world that seemed to finally be going somewhere with careers and a house… came to the biggest halt, word’s fail me to describe that moment. The worst feeling to come, when I had to call his parents to confirm the suspected horrible news. Little did we know what was ahead of us.

In short, the beginning looked promising. The oncologist we were assigned felt highly confident in treating Tom, said he might be back at work, cancer free in February. What actually occurred was that he couldn’t get Tom into remission. Poor Tom did five rounds of very intense chemo, that also brought along various life threatening infections such as e. coli in the blood stream, chemical meningitis, VRE, and various neutropenic fevers. November 5th, we received the news that Tom was still not in remission (when it was expected that the first round would achieve this and he’d done five). It felt like we would never get there. November 7th we were sent a different hospital where we met Dr. Carroll to talk about a bone marrow transplant, which can only be done once remission has been achieved.

Dr. Carroll achieved remission with a different chemo regimen the first time around. This was the best feeling ever. I’ll spare all of the in between details, but we’re happy to announce that after a few months, they found a bone marrow match for a donor and the date has been made for March 22nd. The hospital has asked us to move closer, which we are doing for ease and Tom’s safety after the transplant. Here’s the kicker. 

Because Tom had only begun his job in January (after graduating top in his class at CSU, Chico for the business college), he has now officially exhausted his state disability funds. This was our main source of income, as I’ve been actually on a leave of absence for carpel tunnel so my worker’s comp checks (which were merely a fraction of Tom’s) are gone very soon. In order for Tom to receive a transplant, he must have a 24/7 primary caregiver as well as backup caregivers just in case. This means I cannot go back to work until he is stable enough to be on his own and we don’t know when that will be. It could be a couple of months, could be six months, and if (God forbid) things just really don’t pan out well it could be a year, etc. 

We do not qualify for cash aid through the state and not being eligible to work immediately he does not qualify for unemployment. Due to only working six months after just graduating from college, he doesn’t qualify for social security disability, and due to being a permanent resident (not a citizen) he also isn’t allowed to draw on social security supplemental income. We have virtually exhausted our options. Seemingly we’ve found the only niche that no agency/organization can help. We do qualify for food stamps, but we need help to pay rent, gas to the hospital, electricity, etc.

This is really long and I do apologize about that, but we’re in need of some sincere help. At 24 and now 26, we have no savings, no retirement to pull from, we have no house to sell, nothing. It pains me to have to be at this point when only less than a year ago we were on top of the world, but we’re asking for the help of family, friends, strangers, anyone and everyone. If you could please help us out and pass this on, that would mean the world to us. Thank you, thank you, thank you… for helping to save my husband’s life.

To donate simply visit www.paypal.com
-choose transfer, click on “send someone money”
-it will bring you to a page where you enter your email address and then mine: laurawalshaw@gmail.com and enter your donation amount. Should be easy. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

If you are interested in all of the details of our journey thus far or would like to follow Tom’s story through his bone marrow transplant, you can follow us at http://leukemialog.blogspot.com/

My Stunning Husband the Day of Our Wedding July 16, 2011

Enjoying a Huddersfield Giants Rugby Game during our Honeymoon Summer 2011

During his second "induction" round of chemo... a 3 week hospital stay at Sutter General Nov 2012

 Visiting our friends the Kirby's after five months of Tom doing chemo Dec 2012 (we would soon find out he was finally in remission!!!)

Transplant Date!

So, we've got it!!!! March 22nd!!!  The hospital was trying to urge (which I suppose is probably hard to do via a 3rd party... especially being that the harassment is probably why it goes through a third party) for the 15th as transplant day, but that was put forth after the original three dates... of which the 22nd was the earliest.  So I think it's fair to say this donor is pretty on it, just probably wasn't ready to go have a trifusion lumen inserted into his neck in the next week or so. In any case, very excited to sort of be approaching the end of this rather nerve racking journey.  Tom isn't very excited about going in for such a possibly long stay, but then who would?

Moving! That's something we're sort of being pushed into doing.  On the one hand nothing sounds any more dreadful than having to find a place, pack, move, unpack, do the hospital thing and all that jazz... nothing.  Then on the other hand, while it certainly isn't ridiculously closer to the hospital, it is a bit and even if it isn't... at least there's more than one way home than the awful one traffic filled route we currently do... and would have to do every day.  So, fresh start.  Sort of suiting ... new bone marrow, new home, new year... yeah.

At first we were so resistant as we like where we are.  We don't necessarily have a ton of people around us, but we've made a few very nice relationships... but I'm sure we'll keep them up.  We like not having to pack (maybe that's sort of the big one?), not to mention the costs involved in moving!!!! We also had started looking around Sacramento and had a few problems:

• The area around the hospital was either way out of our budget or anti-animals
• Sacramento seems to be mostly full of places you wouldn't want to live, with a few decent places... but unfortunately we aren't the only people who would like to not get robbed or killed, so they cost a lot.
• We don't even really know where these "nice" areas are... every time we thought a place looked "nice" online, we'd go check it out and see that yes, that particular complex was nice, but meth was being sold on the opposite side of the fence... dramatized a bit, but for purpose of a good mental picture.
• We live in a 2bdrm apartment that has 1200 Sq ft!!!! We have not yet found an equivalent and have furniture to furnish the house we thought we'd be hypothetically buying... so now we might have to downsize on our collection of stuff? 
• Lastly, it just felt like we were too lacking in knowledge, funds, contacts and time.  I mean we were talking a few weeks possibly to transplant and it felt overwhelming

Well, the transplant coordinator told us to check a certain area (where she actually moved when she came to California) and it was like a piece of placer county hidden in Sacramento.  Looks like a beautiful community!  The places weren't half price of what we're paying now, but some of them were actually a bit nicer! At the end of the day, I suppose it'd be ideal to find a place in a nice neighborhood of Sacramento that's updated, safe, maybe $400 cheaper than here so life isn't a struggle down the road when disability disappears, a place that is ready to move in now so we can do it at a decent pace and be done before he goes into the hospital... yes, but unfortunately my dream world is exactly that, not real.  So, finding a place that's most of those things and maybe even the same price, but we're saving on gas... winning! So we're trying for that. We have one tiny possibility of my dream world... but we're waiting on some verification on their part.

Oh and on the dog front, we got a letter from the doctor so she is now a "companion dog" which means she breaks all the barriers that once kept us from many properties as they can't utilize any kind of restriction! So stoked on that!!!!  God is good!

So that's where we stand.  So excited to have the transplant date in sight now! Fantastic!!!  I know Tom can do this, he always exceeds their expectations and gets out much sooner than they forecast because he can set his mind on something like nobody's business!  I know he will do great with this and he deserves to just be normal again.