“Failure is Not an Option”

Kim is a daughter, a sister, a mother, a friend.   She is a nearly a lifelong member of our Conejo Valley community.  Unfortunately, Kim also happens to be a Stage 4 Lung Cancer patient, battling a life-threatening disease with typically a grim prognosis.  But Kim is a fighter, and with the support of her friends, family and our community, she has a chance to beat the odds and become something else:  a Survivor.

As a single mother, Kim has already faced numerous obstacles and challenges and has always done so with grace.  To better provide for her 3 year old son, Christian, Kim moved her and her son out of state for a job opportunity. 

Barely settled in her new life, she was dealt the blow that changed everything: she was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer and doctors gave her only months to live. Having never smoked, Kim was shocked and devastated to find out there was a tumor the size of a grapefruit, in her lung that might take her life. That was in July 2010.

Determined to somehow recover and a reverence to raise her son, Kim quickly sought out numerous “second” opinions, but kept hearing the same news - get your things in order and prepare for the end. Sadly, she was misdiagnosed two times and had two different rounds of chemotherapy that she should have never had. Needless to say, neither had any effect on the tumor but did she experience all the pain and side effects of these treatments. Her third doctor, although diagnosed her correctly, she had come to find out that part of her third, and fourth “chemo cocktail” could have caused her lung to collapse…and still had no effect on the tumor. But Kim kept showing up to each doctor’s appointment with hope yet she was treated with none.

Kim is not willing to concede.  In August 2011, she sought out the help of MD Anderson Hospital in Houston, Texas where she was accepted into a new program.  There, and for the first time, she was treated with HOPE and OPTIMISM…not as a dying woman.  They expressed to Kim that if they were able to shrink her tumor with a new type of chemotherapy, she may be able receive radiation therapy...something she was previously told would never happen, and if all goes well, they will discuss the options on how to get her into remission. 

Armed with new hope and an undeniable will to see her son grow up, Kim has come back home for treatment.  However, leaving her job behind to follow an aggressive treatment plan has left her unable to handle alone the financial burden of the numerous treatments or monthly expenses for her and her son.

Since Kim started treatment spear-headed by MD Anderson, yet able to have her chemotherapy at City of Hope in September 2010, (2 6 week rounds back to back) the tumor in Kim’s lung has shrunk approximately 40 percent from the new chemotherapy. She has just spent the last two months in Texas receiving radiation treatment Monday through Friday for 7 weeks. She goes back, mid May for what we...her friends and family, know and believe will be positive results and await to hear the next step on what it will take to get her into remission and allow her to continue to raise her son to be the man she wants him to become.

The Talbert Family Foundation will donate 100% of the funds raised in
Kim's Cause Fund to Kim and her family. Further, the Talbert Family Foundation will match the first $10,000 raised in this fund.