Jessie Haase Family Memorial Fund

The following was written by Jessie Hasse’s broken hearted sister days after Jessie passed away at age 39 at the Mayo Hospital in Rochester, MN; losing a courageous battle with Leukemia.

“This is me and my best friend, my little sister..

This picture was taken just before the start of the Door County Half Iron July 16, 2017.

About 2 weeks later on Aug 2, Jessie was diagnosed with ALL. She had noticed some unexplainable bruising on her legs. She went to have it checked out at Urgent Care. They did a basic blood test and the results showed she was very ill. We didn’t fully understand the world we were about to enter.

Jessie was diagnosed with a rare subtype of Leukemia. What that means is there really are no treatments available to help her. But she fought anyway.

About half way through her first treatment her ALL turned into AML. This has only happened a handful of times across the nation in the last 10 years or so. We understood then we were dealing with an ugly aggressive disease.

Jessie went through 3 very dangerous treatment regimens. With every attempt she had multiple bone marrow biopsies and lumbar punctures. The treatments decimated her bone marrow counts and made her extremely tired, weak feeling awful and susceptible to infections. She spent many many days and weeks as an inpatient and away from her family.

She leaves behind a broken hearted husband and a beautiful 8 year old son.

I am her only sibling, a 100% HLA match. I never wanted to donate my bone marrow more in my life. They just couldn’t get her into remission to be able to do a bone marrow transplant.

Blood cancer is a very scary horrible disease.

Blood cancer patients go through horrific treatments with high doses of poison.

Doctors and researchers need to do better. High risk leukemias are a death sentence.

I’m mad and I feel cheated!

Consider registering to become a bone

marrow donor at Bethematch.org

Give the gift of life.

Sisters are a gift. I will miss my sister deeply. She was my best friend. Watching her deal with this disease over the last 7 months was excruciating. She was so brave through it all. She wanted to live!

My sister left behind a loving husband and an amazing young son. We have set up a memorial fund in Jessies name to help the family through this tragedy.

Keep Jessie strong in your heart.

Jessie was loved deeply by her family and friends. Her kindness, her smile, laugh and her silliness brightened our lives. These will be forever etched in the hearts and minds of those who loved her. Jessie's greatest gift was her tenacity. The definition of tenacity includes words like determination, strength of purpose, boundless energy, patience, endurance, stamina and we cannot forget her stubbornness. All these encompass the essence of Jessie's personality.

Jessie's love for her family was endless and you could hear the love in her voice when she spoke of her son, Jackson. Jessie fought a strong and brave battle against Leukemia. We will always wonder why she was taken from us at such a young age. Life will be very difficult without her, yet we are very grateful for the time we did get to share with her.

As you can imagine, there is no way to be prepared for an event like this, so we all want to help where we can. Any amount helps and is appreciated. Thanks for your support.