Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
WEST JORDAN — A Jordan School District employee was recently diagnosed with cancer for the second time this year, but his family has not gone without help.
Kaleb Yates, an instructional coach at Heartland Elementary, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in May after getting sick with strep throat quite often.
Yates underwent surgery to get his thyroid removed before going through radiation. Because his wife was pregnant with their third child, he was unable to be around his family for 18 days.
Now, he takes a pill daily and will go in for scans every 6 months.
Then on Nov. 1, Yates was experiencing pain in his rib cage and lower abdomen that wouldn't go away. He went into Instacare, but was sent to the emergency room, where they discovered his appendix was about to rupture.
About a week after his appendix were removed, Yates was diagnosed with appendiceal mucinous neoplasms — an appendix cancer — and scheduled a surgery to have part of his lower intestine and part of his colon removed.
The surgery went well, and now the family is waiting to find out what the next step is.
With a brand new baby at home and the surgeries Yates has had, his family has quite a few medical bills, he said. But while he was in the hospital, he and his wife learned his cousin had set up a GoFundMe account* for them.
Yates' cousin setup the account with a goal to raise $7,500. As of Monday evening, nearly $5,000 had been donated.
Yates said when they got on Facebook and saw the GoFundMe, they were pretty touched.
"...to see that people were wanting to help and that's the way they chose to do it, and we were quite grateful," Yates said.
Yates said they've been overwhelmed with the support from family, friends and neighbors as they've sent messages and meals.
He said his doctor has been amazed with how fast he has healed from his surgery, something Yates attributes to the prayers of his family.
"We just want to tell everybody that's been helping us out … thank you and that we've(sic) really appreciated everything they've done," Yates said. "...it really helps us kind of focus on what's most important, and we're hoping that after we get through all this … that we can be as helpful as everybody else has been to us if ... anybody runs into similar circumstances that we can help them out, that's what we're hoping for."
*KSL.com does not assure that the monies deposited to the account will be applied for the benefit of the persons named as beneficiaries. If you are considering a deposit to the account, you should consult your own advisors and otherwise proceed at your own risk.
