34-year-old Ben Offrink is tasked with the responsibility of caring for his wife, Shelby, who is suffering from stage four cancer, and their two little girls. Ben himself is also suffering from his own cancer.
Such is the plight of the young couple from Lowell, Michigan, whose lives have changed forever when then 30-year-old Shelby, an engineer, discovered that she had a rare, incurable cancer called glioblastoma on her spine shortly after delivering her second baby, Hazel, who is now 14 months old. Their elder daughter, Maeve, is three.
While Shelby began receiving treatment for her cancer, Ben relapsed into his third battle with Hodgkin's lymphoma. His doctors at the University of Michigan are trying to get him into remission so he could receive a bone marrow transplant, for which two qualified donors have already been identified. Ben's treatments require that he be away from home over extended periods of time.
The situation couldn't have gotten worse for the young couple. However, on Jan. 19, Shelby was hospitalized after experiencing chronic pain, nausea, pancreatitis, urinary tract infection, and rapid weight loss. Ben also noticed Shelby was sleeping more and occasionally struggled to stay alert. Doctors ordered magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tests on her and discovered that the cancer cells have climbed up her spine into her brain. They found three tumors inside Shelby's brain, the biggest one 2 millimeters in diameter.
On Jan. 29, Shelby began receiving radiation treatments at the Lemmon Holton Cancer Pavilion in Grand Rapids, Michigan for 14 days. She has been responding positively and was eventually discharged from the hospital last week, in time for her 31st birthday. At this point, doctors emphasize that the goal of any treatment is not to cure anything but to help Shelby extend her life and spend quality time with her girls.
Meanwhile, friends and family continue to pour their love and support for the couple as they go through the most challenging experience of their lives. Maeve and Hazel have started daycare so that Ben can spend more time caring for his wife. An outpouring of well wishes and donations have also come from the Lowell community to help raise funds for the couple's treatment and support their children.
On Friday, the local community held a spaghetti dinner to help raise funds for the Offrinks. On the same night, the local basketball teams from Lowell and East Grand Rapids also held Hoops for Hope, a benefit game that raised $10,000 for the family.
"This past week has been both the longest and shortest of my life," says Shelby, who is quoted by friends in the family's YouCaring page.
"To say I have been showered with love and support would be the understatement of the century. It has been a tsunami! A warm, loving, comforting one, but just insane. I am overwhelmed everyday with the generosity of all of the people who are a part of our lives," she says. "I am having a really hard time processing and accepting all of the things that are being done for us - I don't feel like I deserve it, but Ben, Maeve, and Hazel deserve all this times a million. Thank you for taking care of them when I can't."
Ben and Shelby's friends have set up a YouCaring page to help raise funds to shoulder their medical bills and their children's needs. The goal is to raise $100,000 and, so far, more than $75,000 have been donated from more than a thousand people. Nothing can ease the emotional toll the situation has on the Offrinks, but we can at least help by providing financial assistance by going to their YouCaring page. Ben and Shelby like reading from which part of the world you come from, so be sure to include that in your donation.
