Helping Ashlee

Dear Friends, family, and Strangers,

Hello, my name is Christy, and I am helping an old and dear childhood friend, as well as a dear friend thru our adult years, Laura Cochran, raise money for her financial and medical expenses during this difficult time in her life.

Here is her story:

Laura, is a 39 yr old, hard working mother of a teenage daughter. She comes from a very loving, single parent family, as her parents divorced when she was 10 yrs old, leaving her own mother to raise her and her brother by herself.

In 1996, coming home one afternoon after picking her brother up from basketball practice, her mother and brother were both killed in a head on car accident, which also killed 2 other people in the other vehicle.

Having no family in the town she lived in, she moved closer to her father, were she also met and married her husband, Micheal.

In Oct of 2000, they became the proud parents of a 7lbs 5oz baby girl, Ashlee Michelle Cochran

In 2001, Michael started having some major medical problems and was later diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. After battling the disease for 2 yrs, Micheal lost the fight in May 2003. Leaving Laura to raise Ashlee as a single mom. With what little saving was left after all medical expenses from Michael's illness and with determination, Laura over came all obstacles.

Now 12 yrs later, Laura has found herself battling the same situation with her daughter, who will turn 15 in Oct of this yr.

Ashlee is a very loving, vibrant, teenage girl with hopes and dreams of becoming a pediatric doctor. As an up coming sophomore in high school, she plays clarinet in the band, high school volleyball, and her one true passion is softball, which she plays yr round, with the hopes of it earning her a scholarship. She also likes hanging out with her friends on hot summer night by the lake and spend cold winter evenings sitting with her mom watching a movie or 2.

2 months ago, while playing a double header softball tournament, Ashlee passed out on the field. After being rushed to the hospital, hours of blood testing, CT scan, and X-Rays, the doctor referred Ashlee to a specialist for a better diagnosis.

After, seeing the specialist, four days of waiting, Laura was giving bad news. Ashlee has lymphoblastic leukemia.

For those of you who do not know what lymphoblastic leukemia is: It usually begins slowly before rapidly getting severe as the number of immature white blood cells increase.

Symptoms Include:

Pale Skin, Tiredness, Breathlessness, High Fevers, Having repeated infection over a short space of time, and Unusual and Frequent Bleeding.

Acute leukemia is an uncommon type of cancer. About 7600 people diagnosed with leukemia each yr, of these, only about 650 people have acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It is the most common in children, with approximately one in every 2000 children will develop it.

Due to the process of trying to get Ashlee into remission, she will need to have frequent visits to the hospital for the next 6 months, along with intense blood testing, bone marrow aspirations, biopsies, and lumbar puncture, also extreme combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, with verious antibiotics, which will leave her weak and very sick, not being able to do much and missing almost all of her sophomore yr in high school.

Laura has taking a long term FMLA from work to be there for her daughter thru all her procedures and Chem and radio. Which will put Laura in a financial bind.

Any and all donations are greatly appreciated at this time. Thank you and may the Lord bless you and your family.