Hello all!
A while back I posted a diary explaining my latest cancer situation. They way things stand now, IV chemotherapy treatments are no longer working and we are trying an oral drug that will hopefully stabilize my cancer for a time at least, though it’s too soon yet to know if it’s working. However, my liver function is declining and as it declines I will become increasingly vulnerable to liver failure, which is, of course, rather fatal.
Last week I had a stent inserted into the common bile duct that connects the liver to the rest of the digestive system in an effort to improve my liver function. It’s too soon to know how effective that has been as well. The issue is that as my tumors grow in size, they put pressure on and block the bile ducts in my liver, preventing them from functioning properly. Eventually, the liver is unable to rid itself of bile and Bad Things start to happen.
After continuing to work for 2 ½ years, at the end of last year I finally applied for disability.
As some of you know, I am (or rather was) a teacher librarian for a modestly-sized district in central Iowa. For 4 of those 6 years I’ve been the sole certified librarian for the district.
I would like to do something for some of my students, and so I have created a GoFundMe fundraiser so that I can purchase a book for each elementary and preschool student in my district. Scholastic Books is preparing a quote for me, but for now I have set the fundraiser at $5k, I’ll adjust as needed once I have more solid numbers. Any excess funds raised will either be donated to other school libraries in need of funding or to literacy-related nonprofits.
And now, for your amusement:
Watch out for those librarian gangs. Who knows what you’ll end up reading.
