Donations pour in for family torn apart by cancer tragedy
Funds helping to cover funeral costs for woman who died shortly after childbirth
Well over $10,000 has been raised to benefit a new Calgary family torn apart by tragedy.
Chantele and Brennan Martens entered Foothills Hospital last June full of hope and happiness at the impending birth of their first child. Their happiness quickly turned to sorrow when, during an emergency caesarean section, doctors discovered the new mother was suffering from advanced-stage cancer.
Staying strong through her 10-month struggle, Chantele died last week at the age of 33 — leaving behind Brennan and their young son, Isaiah.
Horrified at the thought of Brennan dealing with the costs of the funeral and caring for his young son, longtime friend Nadia Bull has organized a crowdfunding campaign to help offset his costs.
“They’d just married in the hospital, a couple of days before she passed,” she said.
“The funeral cost a lot of money — it was a really big service — and they also have a little boy, so I thought it would be nice for him to regain some, if not all, of the cost of the funeral.”
Immediately after the birth of her son, Chantele was whisked off for debilitating cancer treatments that prevented her from caring for and bonding with her baby.
Kept in the hospital for weeks after her son was discharged, she gained much of her strength from Brennan, who stayed by her side throughout the ordeal. “He’s seriously a hero,” Bull said. “He was always by her side and helped her do everything — I was surprised at how amazing and strong he was throughout the whole 10 months.”
Even when Chantele was sent home, the reality of her condition and ongoing chemotherapy treatments robbed her of much of the joys many new mothers experience.
“She never complained. She went to every treatment and weekly appointments. It got to be quite painful,” Bull said.
“She never complained, she always tried to fight.”
Despite her strength, her condition worsened and last week she was readmitted to hospital.
By Thursday, sepsis had set in and doctors confirmed the cancer had spread to her lungs.
They delivered the heartbreaking news that Chantele’s time was quickly running out, and there was little they could do.
Calling family to her bedside, the couple were baptized and married shortly before Chantele’s final battle ended.
As of Saturday, Bull’s GoFundMe page had passed the halfway mark to its $20,000 goal after only three days — a testament, Bull says, to how many lives Chantele touched in her life.
“Chantele was really generous,” she said.
“She had a generous nature on her own — she was always trying to help someone, whether it was friends or family, or a stranger or stray animal. There’d been more than one occasion where she’d call me in tears over a complete stranger’s GoFundMe page that she’d felt compelled to donate to.”
Any money left over will go into an educational fund for Isaiah, Bull said. Aside from the money raised so far, Bull was shocked to see her campaign had been shared on social media well over a thousand times.
“I was surprised by that, that it had travelled so quickly,” she said.
“Isaiah’s so young, and she didn’t get to see him have his first birthday — I think that speaks to a lot of people.”
They’d just married in the hospital, a couple of days before she passed.