To know Kara, is to love her.
In early 2020, Kara sat with an oncologist and was given the devastating news that she had Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer. With warrior grit, she did 5 months of chemo and 17 treatments isolated radiation. She fought hard with her loving family close to her side. After months of treatment and perseverance, she got to ring the bell to symbolize the mark of a dark ending and a beginning of a new beginning. This amazing accomplishment was not easy, it was a milestone that she was done with the dark days that were now in her rear view mirror. Kara embraced that second chance with everything she had. She lived fully, loved deeply, and gave selflessly. Her philosophy was simply to cherish life, serve others, and never let darkness win.
Come the end of 2024, Kara started to feel pain in her hip that started to immobilize her. But if you know Kara, you know how rare it is for her to slow down. The busy body she is continued to be an amazing mama to her 6 kids and a loving wife to her husband, even though she was in incredible pain. Many had no idea how deeply she was suffering, or how little she was sleeping, because she continued to show up with love and often smiled through the pain. After months and months of several tests, scans and a few surgeries, it has been confirmed that the cancer has relapsed and Kara is needing to go through treatment again.
Kara’s cancer has been found in multiple areas: her neck, collarbone, chest, and a few spots in her pelvic bone and stomach and is at stage 4B. With the relapse of her cancer, Kara will undergo intensive treatment of chemotherapy and immunotherapy for about 9 weeks, followed by needing to go to Seattle to be housed by the hospital where they will do stem cell therapy alongside hard chemo and then do a stem cell rescue afterwards. The oncologist is hopeful and is staying positive giving Kara a 50-75% chance survival. Knowing Kara and her love for life, children, husband and everyone around her, she will be giving it everything she’s got, plus some.
Even though Kara has cancer, cancer does not define her. Kara is the person to invite the lonely stranger over to her house to feed them dinner or paint their nails. She’s the girl that brings the party and laughter to the room. She even gets the shyest wallflowers to dance on the dance floor. Kara makes you feel like the most amazing human to exist. She will sit there and listen to your hard times, cry with you, give the best hugs and make you feel hope, love and cherished through any hardship. She loves deep and loves to go on adventures with her favorite humans, her children. Even when she was in extreme pain, she would take her children out to find fun places in nature and go on adventures. Kara makes friends wherever she goes and makes everyone comfortable in their own skin. Her family is her world, and she absolutely loves being by their side and seeing their accomplishments, successes and smiles. Kara loves everyone to be happy and truly believes everyone deserves to be happy. Kara loves her Heavenly Father and also has deep faith in Jesus Christ. Her life radiates their love and many people come to see Christ more clearly through Kara, because of the unconditional love and service she shares so freely. She is a pillar of strength in her church, her community, and her family.
Now Kara needs us. Her upcoming treatment will require extended stays away from home, significant travel, and a range of medical expenses not fully covered by insurance. With six children and a husband doing everything he can to hold things together, any financial help will make a real difference. But more than anything, Kara will need our prayers to help keep her held up. She has already talked about the miracles she has seen from the countless prayers given, and I know this is just the beginning of many miracles to be witnessed.
So even though the cancer has returned, Kara will continue to be Kara. She will still love deeply and give service when she can. Chemo, immunotherapy and stem cell therapy will not take the light that she shines. These days will be hard and dark, but Kara will still shine on through it all.
