Pictured is Brenda Ackley, a Jamestown woman who a Go Fund Me was recently started for, to help pay for cancer treatments. Photo courtesy of Ackley’s Go Fund Me page

A Go Fund Me has been started for a local woman, Brenda Ackley, who has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Carcinoma Sarcoma.

Ackley was diagnosed in February 2023. She had surgery at Cleveland Clinic, followed by 25 rounds of radiation, driving to Cleveland from Monday through Friday, and six months of chemotherapy. Ackley was cancer free for three months, and then a scan told her the cancer had returned and metastasized to her peritoneal and lung.

Ackley’s friend Kevin DeLong said he has been helping drive her back and forth to Cleveland for the last year and a half for her chemotherapy. He said the Go Fund Me was started to help with payments for the chemo, which the insurance company has told her costs her $2,000 a month.

“This is a very rare form of cancer,” DeLong said. “When she was first diagnosed she was having stomach problems and they found a tumor in her uterus that at the time was the size of a golf ball. When she had surgery just a few days later it had already grown to the size of a grapefruit.”

The Go Fund Me was started by another of Ackley’s friends, Nichole Cady, and can be found on the Go Fund Me website under the name “Support Brenda Ackley’s Cancer Battle”. All funds from the Go Fund Me will go directly towards helping to pay for treatments and cover the $2,000 a month cost. DeLong added that Ackley’s sister takes care of the money and payments, and that nothing from the Go Fund Me will be used for anything else besides that.

DeLong said this Go Fund Me is important to him because of his long friendship with Ackley.

“We grew up together,” DeLong said. “We were neighbors, and we drifted apart for a while but then we talked one day and became friends again. Then this happened to her.”

DeLong said Ackley is very well known in Jamestown, having a lot of friends and coming from a nice neighborhood and a nice, upstanding family. She also used to work at YWCA for 25 years, before having to leave that job because of the cancer diagnosis.

“They are able to make it, but it is tough,” DeLong said. “It really is an uphill battle for them, and we just want to get people donating to this Go Fund Me to help them get ahead of the payments, so she won’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Ackley’s Go Fund Me can be found at www.gofundme.com/f/support-brenda-ackleys-cancer-battle.