Helping a Petaluman beat leukemia

A fund-raiser for leukemia patient and Petaluma resident Mreleen Collins will be held May 17

Longtime Petaluman Merleen Collins faces a lengthy, difficult and costly treatment for leukemia. Zoom Photo

Fund-raiser for Merleen What: Fund-raiser to benefit leukemia patient Merleen Collins When: 5 p.m. May 17 Where: Herzog Hall on the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds, 175 Fairgrounds Drive. Tickets: $40. Information: Contact Alan Brody, 763-3503.

Longtime Petaluman Merleen Collins was in complete shock when she learned from her doctor that she had chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

“I went in for a routine physical exam and had blood work done, and when it came back that I had leukemia, it was a big shock,” said Collins, who was diagnosed in 2000. “I wasn’t ill. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t expect this.”

Though the disease was controlled through chemotherapy for a few years, Collins became very ill last year. “The chemotherapy was very hard for me to have and I could no longer work at my job and I was placed on disability,” she said. “I’ve had two rounds of chemo, but the third I didn’t respond to as well.”

With chemotherapy no longer effective, Collins is scheduled to undergo a stem cell transplant, which will be performed at Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto on July 11. The treatment and follow-ups will take a total of three months, with medical visits being part of the daily regimen. The treatment has a 50-50 chance of success. “This is my one chance to beat this disease,” she said.

Having daily doctor visits means Collins will have to live in Palo Alto for three months as well as cover out-of-pocket expenses for her treatments and co-payments for medicine and medical procedures.

Collins was trying to figure out how to come up with the money to pay for it when longtime friend, Alan Brody, stepped in to offer support by putting together a fund-raiser.

“I just felt that I wasn’t going to let Merleen roll over and not do anything, so I told her we were going to have a fund-raiser,” said Brody, who put together a similar event years ago for another Petaluman who had cancer. “She didn’t want to do it, but I told her that’s just fine, we were doing it whether she wanted it or not. She finally said OK to it.”

The fund-raiser for Collins begins with a no-host bar at 5 p.m. May 17 in Herzog Hall on the Sonoma-Marin Fair-grounds. A New York steak dinner begins at 6:30 p.m., and there will be both live and silent auctions as well as a raffle for a trip to Cabo San Lucas.

Tickets are $40 per person and available by calling Brody at 763-3503.

To view a list of items for auction, or to learn more about Collins, visit http://merleen collins.tripod.com.

(Contact Yovanna Bieberich at yovanna.bieberich@argus courier.com)