Six months ago, Squamish resident Jay Butler was experiencing headaches, vomiting and double vision.
Although she followed up with doctors, it was only after a check-up with the optometrist, who insisted she get a CT scan, that she found out that she had a glioblastoma, a type of brain tumour.
If there was good news, it was that the tumour was operable, and she was able to go into surgery two days later. On Aug. 5, she was diagnosed, and on Aug. 7, she went in for surgery.
Still, the diagnosis means radiation and oral chemotherapy to reduce the chance that the tumour returns, as an oncologist told her that there is a 100-per-cent chance it will come back if she does not go through the post-operative treatment.
“I don’t really feel the effects of the chemo. It’s more the radiation,” she said. “The radiation is killing my hair and it’s killing my energy.”
The radiation lasts a relatively brief six weeks while the oral chemotherapy lasts six months and requires she get her blood tested to ensure she can handle the treatment. As tough as the radiation treatment has been, Butler knows the situation is far worse for many with cancer.
“There’s many things about this that I feel grateful for,” she said. “Six weeks is really nothing in the big picture.”
As she and her husband Arran have a good extended health benefit plan, they and their friends decided to raise money not for her treatment but to help other families with young children dealing with cancer.
On Sunday, friends and family packed the Ruddy Duck Bar and Grill for a beer and burger fundraiser, which together generated $24,938 in donations, to say nothing of the food, drinks and staff hours given for the event. Some money came through a GoFundMe site and through the head-shaving pledges at the Ruddy Duck. Over the course of the evening, it seemed like half the men in the bar stepped up to have their noggins go under the razor.
The main attraction of the evening was when two of Jay’s close friends, Diana Frederickson and Andrea Bourgh, took offers to shave their heads as a sign of solidarity with Butler, who was also having her head shaved on Sunday evening.
“We decided, ‘Jay, we’re losing our hair with you,’” Frederickson told the crowd at the Ruddy Duck. “We wanted to make this experience for Jay was something that was happy and fun.”
Butler is overwhelmed by the support she has had and points to many friends like Taylor McKechnie, who, with others, is organizing a network of friends via Facebook to put together meals to help the Butler family.
“I don’t think I’m doing anything more for Jay than she’d do for me times 10,” she said.
McKechnie has had people stop her on the street to ask how they can help, and she emphasizes she is only part of a large group of friends that want to help. For her, putting together food for the family is an easy way to lighten the load for Jay and the Butler family.
“She doesn’t have to worry about the little stuff, so she can just focus on healing,” McKechnie said.
The proceeds from the event and the GoFundMe site will go to the Wigs for Kids Foundation, part of the B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation. This will help buy wigs for children, who like Butler are losing their hair, as well as assist families with medical expenses that might not be covered by the Medical Services Plan.
The GoFundMe site will be open until the end of the week. Butler’s husband’s company is also making a large donation to a local family in need, as a way to pass along the good fortune their family has had in the form of their loved ones.
“We’ve had so much support from our friends,” she said.
