Friends hoping to help Arlene Fyke
Donations sought to help with expenses after cancer diagnosis
July 2, 2024, 8:11 am
Ashley Bochek
Andree Soke and a group of friends are hoping to help Moosomin’s Arlene Fyke with expenses she is facing since a cancer diagnosis. They are collecting donations to help cover the costs.
Soke says Fyke was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in April of this year.
“Over the Easter long weekend, Arlene was sick and thought she had the flu, she was quite sick. Then, a day or two later she noticed that her eyes were turning yellow and that her skin was turning yellow, and that is when she went to the hospital and started checking out what was going on.
“She has cancer in her pancreas and in her bile duct. She goes to Saskatoon on Wednesday, (June 19) for a Whipple surgery. It will remove part of her pancreas and her bile duct. It will be a five-hour surgery.”
Right now, she says Fyke has very little pain coming up to the surgery.
“She has a little bit of back pain, but they maybe caught it early enough that she is feeling really good. It is probably a good thing she got sick when she did. It took awhile for the doctors to diagnose, but they figured it out. She has had many doctor appointments.”
Friends of Fyke’s decided to help her with setting up an account to cover travelling expenses.
“A few of us friends got together and we wanted to help. There was four of us, Rae Holloway, Trisha Green, Tannis Schwean, and I put this together. Arlene didn’t really want it at the beginning and it took us awhile to get her to even let us help her. We got together and wrote up what we felt we needed to write up and showed her and she was okay with it. They’re always out there willing to help everyone else, they need help too.”
Soke says there will be a lengthy hospital stay followed by a lengthy period of recovery.
“She is supposed to be in Saskatoon for up to two weeks. Hopefully no longer, hopefully less and so they will need hotel rooms and fuel. They’re borrowing vehicles to transfer her back so I don’t know if that is costing anything, but there’s just a lot of cost for running back and forth. They have been in Saskatoon, Regina, and Yorkton, lots of running around.” (Last week, Arlene went in for surgery and doctors were unable to remove any cancer in the Whipple surgery. Arlene’s next steps are chemo or an extensive surgery in Toronto).
Soke says friends decided to offer support because they didn’t want to see financial impacts on Arlene and her family from the medical expenses.
“Everybody needs help at a time like this. It is very important that they have as much help as they can so they don’t have to take out of their own funds that they have planned for their own retirement. They’re just those people that would be the first ones to donate for anyone else needing help.”
She says they have an account set up for E-transfers that will be available for the Fykes.
“Instead of doing a GoFundMe, we have opened up an account for them in their name and people can just donate to that fund by E-transferring, and they just accept it and it is theirs to use for any help they may need.”
She says she is happy to be able to help her friend. “It feels good to support Arlene. We wanted to do it in the very beginning when we found out, but they didn’t want the help. It was their daughter, Shanae, that finally said to them, ‘if your friends want to do something for you, you guys need to let them help you,’ and so then we made it happen. Their daughter is getting married on June 29, so that is in two weeks so that is quite a concern. She is hoping to be home within seven days, but who knows. It is a lot to think about when this is going on.”
Soke said that Arlene is happy to see the support.
“She is happy that we are helping. She didn’t want it at first, but everybody needs help and being in a small community—this community is amazing how everybody helps everyone—you know everyone. They’re all very grateful. We pray and we hope. She is strong.”
Donations can be made at Scotiabank in Moosomin or E-transfers can be sent to:
funds4fykers@gmail.com
