Campaign Story

Hi everyone, we are Gillian and Tory and we have recently celebrated 15 years together and 5 years of marriage. Gillian is an elementary school teacher who spends her free time training for triathlons, hiking, leading run groups and snuggling our cat Edwin. Tory is a professional forester, who loves mountain biking with our dog Kona, playing guitar and exploring nature. We both are passionate about fundraising and have spent the last 5 years fundraising for, and completing, the British Columbia Tour De Cure cycling event, having together raised over $25,000 for cancer research.

In 2018, Gillian was diagnosed with an ovarian tumour, it was a very frighting time and required major surgery as it was too large to be removed laparoscopically. At first the tumour was deemed non-cancerous; after her surgery we were able to recover, move forward and Tory proposed. During a routine checkup in 2019, 6 months before our wedding, the doctors found more tumours had grown, the major one being on Gillian’s remaining ovary and then had spread to her uterus. After a second biopsy it was determined that there were cancerous cells buried deeply within her original tumour and she was diagnosed with a reoccurrence. The day before her second surgery, and only 4 months before our wedding, Gillian’s oncologist referred her to a reproductive gynaecologist who gave us the choices of harvesting eggs or proceeding with the surgery to remove the cancer. The egg harvesting process was going to be a very risky process to undergo, causing a lot of potential for further spreading of the cancer and no guarantee that the ovary had any viable eggs buried under the tumour, so we picked the surgery. It was the best decision we could make at the time, but was a devastating decision as it meant we had to give up on our chance to ever have a family the traditional way. After the surgery Gillian started 6 rounds of chemotherapy, and, despite our wedding date falling after the second round, we were able to have a wonderful wedding surrounded by friends and family.

Since that time Gillian has had two more reoccurrences, the second of which was a metastasized diagnosis, where her cancer came back and spread to her lungs and liver. Thanks to the amazing work of her oncologist, she is currently participating in a phase 1 clinical trial and just celebrated one year of this treatment. These last few years have stollen a lot of from us, joy, hope, and life experiences. We have been left with trauma, and grief that we still work hard to heal from everyday. Part of this healing process is trying to have plans and hope for the future. One of our hopes for the future is to have a family, but that is not an easy goal to achieve with the cards we have been handed in life.

We are hoping to start a family through egg donation and surrogacy. This is a complicated pathway that is expensive and requires a lot of steps and coordination. Beyond the initial planning and working through our grief as a couple; we have started saving as much of our own money as we can, finding clinics in British Columbia that can support our goals, and applying to egg donation clinics in the United States. We are starting this fundraiser because every dollar helps us get closer to our goal, any donations would go towards the costs associated with receiving a donor egg or a surrogate. We want to thank everyone for taking the time to read our fundraiser or for any donations you may choose to make. Any little bit helps and we are incredibly thankful for the support.