Meet Abbey

A cancer diagnosis leaves you feeling very alone. Even your own body feels almost like an enemy, or at the very least, a constant reminder that something is very wrong. At first, you crave any detail you can get about what your future will look like. Very soon, you are drowning in information, paperwork, and appointments. Your body is changed, sometimes temporarily. Other times, permanently. You learn new skills and emotions. And as things get darker, the joyful things get brighter. Small moments with your family and friends feel huge.

For young adults, the topic of starting a family also comes up. For my husband and I, that meant suddenly having to make big, expensive decisions on a topic we had just started to discuss in earnest. During fertility preservation treatment, it became clear that few young adults are put in that situation and even fewer have the funds to do it. Fortunately, we were able to find other young adults who understood what we were going through and financial assistance through Maggie's Dream.