Erika Hempstead, the wife of Travis and mother of three daughters, was recently diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic cancer. This is the second time in as many years that she's been diagnosed with the disease.

She's just turned 39 and has decided to make some tough decisions concerning her care.

Below is a post recently shared via Facebook concerning Erika and the necessary funds that the family is trying to raise for Erika's care.

If you feel led to, feel free to donate to help them out!

"As many of you know, Erika was initially diagnosed with cancer in April of 2017 after the birth of our youngest curly-haired munchkin, Brielle. She received treatments and thought the cancer was gone. She put in the time every day since then doing research, taking classes to become a certified health and nutrition coach, going to seminars, festivals, and events to try and help as many people as possible.

Shortly before Halloween she had a short hospitalization for some stomach issues. At this time the CT also happened to reveal a lesion on her spine. On 11.10.19 she celebrated turning 39 while recovering from 2 biopsies. On 11.14.19 the results came in showing cancer has returned. It has spread to the spine and lymph nodes staged as metastatic stage 4. The words we never thought we'd have to hear followed...

Absolutely refusing to be just another "Gold standard of care" statistic, Erika has decided to go against the grain knowing that conventional treatments will not give her the results, the time, or healthy life she's worked so hard for. Through days of research and sleepless nights trying to figure this out, she has decided to seek treatments in Scottsdale Arizona at Envita Medical Center. This center provides some of the best integrative cancer treatments in the world. We have posted the link to the website in another post.

This will be a difficult program due to the required length of time away from home being 2-3 months, along with a very significant cost due to integrative care treatments not being covered by insurance.

Initial costs are estimated at $100k-$200k depending on the recommended treatments for Erika's specific cancer makeup.

We are blessed to have the best contacts in the wedding and events industry and an amazing Click Stop family who have already begun to jump into action as well! On top of that, we have amazing circle friends and family that we know can help us make this possible and get her the treatment she needs.

We are definitely going to need some help. The financial aspect is going to be our biggest hurdle in this entire journey. We will be sharing the event(s) and ways to help on this page. We ask if you could help us by liking and following this page, sharing events, sharing links to updates, and links to help with donations when they are posted as much as possible!!

We have decided not to do a fundraising site like GoFundMe. Although convenient for ways to donate and see progress, the fees they take from your donations are just too much!

Please use and share these links for donating online if at all possible.

Preferred method ZELLE - You can pay on your bank app through Zelle by using my phone number(319-721-4154) or email address(travishempstead@uniqueeventsiowa.com). This will go directly to our bank account without having to transfer money from another source.

Venmo Link - @travis-Hempstead-1.

If you aren't comfortable donating online you can drop donations off at Unique Events in Cedar Rapids(Where Travis works), at Click Stop in Urbana(Where Erika works), or message for our address if you would like to send something instead.

We can use all the prayers and good energy you got! If you don't know her, she's the strongest, smartest, most determined, stubborn, beautiful and graceful friend/wife/mother/human I've ever met. The girls and I have always been the one that needed her. She needs us now.


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