CINCINNATI — Those who know Tabatha Wiedemann describe her as a woman with a “heart of gold.”
“Tabatha is one of the kinds of people that when you meet her, she is incredibly beautiful inside and outside,” her friend Paige Ballengee said. “That is the number one way people describe her consistently, over and over again.”
A single mother of two, Wiedemann has lived with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma since 2018. With the Cecil Dye Foundation, a non-profit focused on easing the financial burden on families affected by cancer, the community is banding together to help this mom in need.
The “Heart of Gold Gala” Thursday night will raise money for Wiedemann’s treatment — and organizers hope to raise at least $20,000 to fight this aggressive form of cancer.
“There’s no cure currently, and there’s not even necessarily a sustained remission," Ballengee said. "There’s just the possibility to maintain the cancer in her body, and if she doesn’t do that, it’s terminal.”
Wiedemann, who has already completed 90 weekly chemotherapy sessions, also faces the treatment’s side effects every day, like chronic pain, fevers of up to 102 degrees and increased risk of liver disease and kidney failure.
"What we're fighting so hard for is to raise money to try another form of cancer treatment, something that's newer in technology that could put her into more of a sustained type of remission," Ballengee said.
The Heart of Gold Gala starts at 7:30 p.m. at Galla Park, 175 Joe Nuxhall Way. Find more information on the event here.
If you can’t attend, you can donate directly via PayPal or with a check made out to the Cecil Dye Foundation.
