Just four months after giving birth to my second child, I was diagnosed with Stage 4  primary mediastinal large B-cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. At the time of my diagnosis, my doctors in Albany shared that my cancer was incredibly rare, with only one other case of it in the region that they knew of — and that was 18 years prior. Despite being in an unstable state with a 2% chance of survival and admitted to the hospital, to which I called home for 30-days, I immediately started putting together my health team, which included local doctors and a lymphoma specialist from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Cancer wasn’t new to my family. My mother and aunt are breast cancer survivors, and my father was in remission from Multiple Myeloma when I received my diagnosis. I had also watched my father-in-law battle Multiple Myeloma and my mother-in-law navigate metastatic breast cancer.

A month into my own treatment, my father’s cancer relapsed, and he was urgently hospitalized. I’ll never forget getting the phone call while I was in the middle of 96-hour inpatient chemotherapy. From my hospital bed, I arranged for my father to be transported by ambulance from Troy, NY to Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City.

During my father’s initial cancer journey, my family and I would take the train to his appointments. The train experience became exhausting for him during his second cancer journey — the long walks through crowded stations, exposure to large groups, and navigating taxis once we arrived in the city. As his immune system and physical condition declined, train travel became impossible. That’s when my uncle stepped in to drive him to his appointments.

I thankfully entered remission in 2021; however, my father’s health continued to decline. We expanded his health team to include specialists at Mount Sinai in New York, the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center in Miami, and Dana-Farber in Boston. In the final three months of my father’s life, my husband and I drove 16,000 miles to get him the care he needed in New York City. Sadly, my father passed away in 2022.

In 2024, my husband was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer, a type of Myeloproliferative Neoplasm (MPN). With so few specialists able to treat this condition, we found ourselves driving back to Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City.

Through all these experiences, I couldn’t stop thinking about how transportation could be such a barrier for patients and families navigating illness. That’s when the idea for The Flutter Express was born.

After mentoring cancer patients and hearing firsthand about the struggles they faced with transportation, especially when needing to travel outside of the Capital Region, I knew I had to take action. I began attending healthcare conferences, meeting with medical centers, hospitals, doctors, non-profits, and Beth Tobin-Harmer at Yankee Trails to discuss a service that could transport customers to locations with world-renowned healthcare facilities with comfort and ease.

I’m truly grateful to be here today, sharing The Flutter Express with you — a transportation service born from a deep understanding of the struggles we face and a desire to make the journey easier for those who need it most and their supportive communities—because no path should be faced alone, no matter the condition or circumstance.

Thank you for being part of this deeply meaningful journey.

with love and purpose,

-Francesca