Jeff’s Story

Site created on February 25, 2020

On Friday, February 21, our whole world changed. 


Jeff went to urgent Care Friday morning because he has been fighting what we thought was the flu for the past couple of weeks-just not feeling great. They took blood and after a very quick turnaround, called us back in and let us know they found blast cells. Long story short, Jeff has been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). They let us go home for a bit and then we came back to St. Peters Health in Helena to be admitted on Friday afternoon. While St.Peters is a wonderful hospital, late Saturday after weighing our options, we decided to transfer Jeff to Seattle where he will be able to receive cutting edge treatments.  


Jeff is currently receiving amazing care at the University of Washington Medical Center.  We are waiting for him to begin chemotherapy, and he will most likely be enrolled in a clinical trial, which can be very expensive. Any donations we receive will help cover the medical bills we will incur through this process.

We have no doubt that Jeff will meet this challenge as he has every other challenge in his life: Head on, with the focus and determination to conquer anything thrown his way.  Anyone who knows Jeff know that Jeff is an absolute bad ass and has the attitude to get him through this. He is the most amazing Dada to our little girl, and the most incredible husband. 


WE ARE SO INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL for the support we have received and Jeff is truly humbled by the outpouring of love coming his way. 


This is an asskicker, but it has nothing on Jeff.

Newest Update

Journal entry by Brittney Shirley

The only thing constant in life is change, and boy have we proven that this year!  It’s been a busy month, and Jeff was FINALLY able to return to work this week!  He was unable to return as planned in September due to a gallbladder issue that caused his doctors to recommend removing his gallbladder. That surgery occurred almost two weeks ago, and he is healing well!  He also had a lump removed from his thumb which has been there for YEARS. It never bothered him much but it sure didn’t like chemo so the doctors wanted to remove it.  He’s awfully tired of being poked and prodded, so hopefully we are over that!  The silver lining here has truly been that we were able to spend more time together and continue to explore “neature” as Greer calls it!


Jeff was like a kid on Christmas morning this Monday when he woke up to go back to doing what he loves!  Ascension PT is such an incredible place, and they are of course taking every precaution necessary to protect themselves and their patients.  Jeff is on an oral chemo for the next year, so we continue to take all the precautions we can during the pandemic. To that end, we made the decision to not have Greer return to daycare. I have resigned from my position at Florence Crittenton and will be staying home with her.  I will miss my work and my work family so much but I am overall excited about this new chapter.

I truly BELIEVE we are on track to regaining what normalcy we can right now. Thank you thank you thank you for your continued prayers, love, and light.  We are so grateful. 

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