I hope I am posting this in the right spot, if not, I am sure someone will put it where it needs to go.
For those of you that know Heather and Bryan Hatton, they have had a huge change in there life recently.
Their 3 year old little boy Jake has been diagnosed with brain cancer called Medullablastoma. This is a rapidly growing cancer and he will undergo 12 months of chemo and radiation treatment. The chemo should not leave any lasting side effects, but they know that the radiation does. Heather said the doctors told her that they have seem up to a 30 point IQ loss in children under 6. As of right now they are pretty sure that this cancer has not spread but they will be doing a spinal tap and CT scan at the beginning of January and also starting treatment then. The first round of treatment they will stay up in Chapel Hill near the hospital because he will have treatment every day. Then he has a couple weeks off and starts treatment 3 times a week for 12 months. They removed a tumor from his brain stem last week and the CT scan of his brain shows that they removed all of it. They give the recovery rate of this form of cancer at 60-70%.
I have asked Heather permission before I posted on here.
The main reason I am doing this is to ask people to help out with the outage season coming up. In talking with Heather, she told me that she will not be able to work this year and maybe longer. Most of you know exactly what that means from a financial standpoint. The last time she talked with someone from the unemployment office they told her she would not qualify since she will not be available for work. Heather had some not so nice words to say about the lady she talked to. Those of you that know her know she will say what is on her mind. I had to smile when I talked to her about this.
So what is being asked is to see if anyone is willing to start a fund raiser at different outages. A bakesale, sell candy, hotdogs, whatever. Or simple ask for donations. Jake's first hospital visit ran up a bill in the range of $400,000 to $700,000 to have the tumor removed. Their insurance is only covering 90%. Plus the upcoming year of chemo and radiation, not to mention the costs of staying away from home during treatment. Bryan is still working, but they do need some help.
I have a church here that I am talking to, to see if they will do a collection for them as I am friends with the preacher.
In the upcoming week, we will be trying to set up a bank account that has branches nationwide.
As far as how Heather and Bryan are dealing with all of this, it has been a shock to them. they have had times when I have talked to them and they seem ok, and others when Heather sounds like she is about to fall apart. And that is to be expected. She says right now they get news, get upset then do what needs to be done.
None of this will be an easy road for them, but both Heather and Bryan are very strong people. Any thoughts and prayers for them and Jake will be appreciated.
I will try to keep this up to date on what is going on and how things are progressing.
When I get the account information for those of you that may want to make a donation or help with a fund raiser, I will get it posted. I know that in cases like this, the bank will allow people to go in tell them a name and make a deposit. Hopefully it will be as easy as that this time.
On a positive note, I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. I know I will see some of you in the coming months at outages.
Take care all.
