Tribute to Jennifer Ellis – Jennifer Ellis https://jenniferellis.org A Tribute to Our Turtle Lady Sun, 14 Nov 2021 01:08:54 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.3 https://i0.wp.com/jenniferellis.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/cropped-turtle-g5acf2d439_1280.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Tribute to Jennifer Ellis – Jennifer Ellis https://jenniferellis.org 32 32 199251903 https://jenniferellis.org/39/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=39 https://jenniferellis.org/39/#comments Thu, 28 Oct 2021 14:50:38 +0000 https://jenniferellis.org/?p=39

October 28, 2021 – If you have followed Jennifer’s story over the past 18 months, you’ll know that she has wrestled with Stage IV inflammatory breast cancer. Last year, during the height of the Covid 19 pandemic, she followed the doctors’ advice and endured chemotherapy and all its side effects, including hair loss, weakness, nausea etc. She then underwent a radical mastectomy and radiation treatments through till Christmas 2020. All of this, she went through alone because of the hospitals not allowing support people to accompany her.

This year, 2021, started off with Jennifer healing and feeling much better. But that relief was short-lived as metastatic pleural effusion came back, and has been causing her the grief of breathing difficulties since March of this year.

Jennifer underwent several procedures to draw the fluid off her lungs, and then had catheters installed on each side of her torso as she required draining several times a week, and then on a daily basis. Jennifer was offered an expensive oral chemotherapy regimen back in the summer, as it was thought that it would hopefully reduce the amount of fluid being generated in her pleural spaces around her lungs and give her some relief. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case; the side effects were extreme nausea and insomnia, and Jennifer deemed that the treatment wasn’t worth the reduced quality of life, and opted for palliative care only.

Jennifer’s time with us is growing short. As she does not wish to die a natural death in hospice due to suffocation, she has chosen to use medical assistance in dying to spare herself the indignity and suffering that the cancer will bring if she should wait for death to come to her.

I’ve created this website for two purposes. The first being a place to honour Jennifer, where you can leave your messages of kindness and support for Jennifer, so she can spend her last days reading them and feeling your love for her. After she is gone, this website will be set up as a memorial to her and will be where the family will post information about the celebration of life that will be arranged at some point in the future.

So please, if you’ve kind words to share Jennifer, click ‘comment’ below and write your comment in the box that appears. For the time being, they will be unmoderated, so do Jennifer and the family the kindness of being polite at this time that is sensitive and difficult for us. Thank you.

~ Dawn Stilwell, Jennifer’s Sister

Jennifer passed away on November 13th, 2021 at 11:33 am, in her mother’s arms with her sisters and her best friend by her side. The family truly appreciates everyone who stopped by to show support for Jen in her final days. Thank you for helping to show Jen how much we all loved her.

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