Cindy Carleton

Cindy’s Story

If you’ve ever met Cindy, you know she has a rare gift. She helps individuals see themselves more clearly. She helps organizations tell their stories with honesty and heart. She helps people find their voice. She helps communities feel connected. Through her career as a storyteller/brand expert, Cindy has mentored companies and individuals in discovering and sharing their personal and professional narratives. Cindy guided young women as a Girl Scout leader, served on the board of the Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan, and actively supported the arts as an artist and Farmington Hills Arts Commission board member. She has spent her entire life – giving others the words and solutions they needed to move forward.

But today, Cindy is fighting for her own.

In December 2024, Cindy’s life changed in an instant when she was diagnosed with glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive forms of brain cancer. Within weeks, she underwent major surgery to remove a tumor the size of a golf ball. Weeks later, additional tumors appeared. The prognosis was devastating, and nothing about the path ahead was certain.

What has followed has been unimaginably hard. And also, somehow, full of hope.

Against the odds, Cindy’s treatments have produced extraordinary results. Her cancer has stopped progressing. Some tumors have shrunk. One has disappeared entirely. Her medical team has been clear that this kind of progress is rare, and that it reflects both the effectiveness of her treatment and Cindy’s determination to keep fighting.

But surviving is only part of the story.

The cancer, and the surgeries that saved her life, took away abilities most of us never think twice about. Cindy is now partially blind in one eye. She can no longer read or write. She cannot recognize numbers. She struggles to speak, living with aphasia and severe apraxia that make forming words and sentences extremely difficult.

For someone whose entire life has been built around communication, this loss has been profound.

And yet, every single day, Cindy shows up to do the work of rebuilding. She works tirelessly in therapy. She practices. She tries again. She keeps going. Her doctors believe that with time, intensive therapy, and consistent support, she can regain many of the abilities she has lost.

That recovery will take years.

Cindy requires ongoing speech, occupational, physical, and psychological therapy that costs between $3,000 and $3,500 every month, even after insurance. She has also been accepted into the University of Michigan’s renowned Aphasia Program, which offers real hope for restoring communication skills but is not covered by insurance. Each session costs $20,000, and she may need multiple sessions over the next one to three years. Please click on the link to learn more at University of Michigan Aphasia Program | Mary A. Rackham Institute (MARI)

These therapies are not optional. They are essential to Cindy’s ability to regain her independence, her voice, and the parts of herself that cancer tried to take.

This is where support makes a real and immediate difference.

Your donation to Cindy’s Help Hope Live fundraiser helps pay for the therapies that give her a real chance to read again, write again, and speak freely again. It also helps reduce the financial burden of care so Cindy can focus her energy where it matters most, on healing.

If you are able, please give. If you cannot give, please share Cindy’s story with others who might be able to help. Every act of generosity, whether financial or simply spreading the word, brings her closer to reclaiming her independence and her life.

More About Help Hope Live

Family and friends of Cindy Carleton are raising funds through the nonprofit Help Hope Live to cover uninsured medical expenses associated with a catastrophic illness. Cindy has chosen to partner with Help Hope Live in part because donations are tax deductible and can only be used to pay or reimburse Cindy’s medical and related expenses. Every contribution and act of kindness brings Cindy closer to reclaiming her words and her independence.

Even now, in the midst of her own fight, Cindy talks about how she wants to help others facing similar challenges. That is who she has always been. And that is who she is still fighting to be.