I've been going back & forth with myself and finally decided that I needed to post this here as well as in my other social media (and email, and IRL discussions, and...)
Things are on the brink of becoming very, very bad here, and we can use a little help.
I kind of glossed over it in my previous post, so here's the back story:
AJ is now a two-time cancer survivor. The first time was the discovery of breast cancer shortly after bringing Miriam home. She beat that with surgery & chemo & force of will, but will remain on medications for the rest of her life -- medications detrimental to mood & energy levels -- and she's still being followed by her oncologist.
That last fact probably saved her life because early this year her oncologist closed out a regularly scheduled follow-up appointment with the usual, "So, do you have any questions before I go?" AJ mentioned an odd patch on her tongue that had begun to look different, the oncologist got concerned and took a look, and after a whirlwind of appointments and tests that found a growing Stage I squamous cell carcinoma my sister underwent 8-1/2 hours of continuous surgery to remove roughly one-third of her tongue, take tissue from her arm to rebuild her tongue, and take tissue from her thigh for a graft onto the surgical wounds to her arm. (Oh, and the removal of a lot of lymph nodes from her throat area for testing).
This was followed by a week in the ICU with a tracheostomy tube sticking out of her throat. Once she was discharged home, she spent weeks able to "eat" only certain liquids. This segued into weeks of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy, all while we helped her change a variety of bandages daily. Finally, after all the dust settled, all the holes in her body had closed, and the swelling of her tongue reduced enough, AJ began seven weeks of radiation treatments to her mouth & tongue, every day, Monday through Friday.
(Did I mention that she was still in the PT/OT/ST stage when she returned to work full-time? My sister isn't one for slacking off when there are bills to pay and a young daughter who needs her mom.)
After all was said & done, AJ settled in to a regimen of daily speech exercises (she has no feeling in the reconstructed part of her tongue, so she's had to re-learn some of the basics of speech), a slow readjustment to what she can/cannot eat (the radiation created new, painful lesions in her mouth; until they finish healing, any food or drink that's even vaguely acidic induces a lot of pain), and learning to find pills, small bites of food, etc. that literally get lost in her mouth due to the lack of sensation in her tongue.
Through it all, Miriam has tried her best to be Mommy's rock. She learned how to change the bandages, figured out how to prepare foods AJ could eat, and took over as many tasks in the house as she could. She & I had numerous sessions where I just held her as she cried in fear & frustration, then gathered herself together and set off determined to "help Mommy so she can heal faster."
Oh, yeah -- and while all this was going on, Dad has continued his slow, obscene slide into advanced dementia, with all the associated physical, financial, and emotional costs for the rest of us; the transmission on AJ's van literally fell apart, requiring over $6,000 to replace; and the front end of my car got bingoed one night by someone who muttered "I didn't see you" after she drove through a brightly lit, unobstructed red light that had been red for a while without even slowing down.
You'd think all that was enough, right? Well, we did, too, until AJ received the bills from the hospital, the therapy group, and the radiology group.
Her out-of-pocket cost is over $70,000 (yes, that's out-of-pocket after insurance has paid its share). The family simply does not have even near that amount of money. The best "deal" she's been offered to date as a payment plan would leave her with less each month than she owes on her mortgage -- and that's if she didn't spend a single penny on food, utilities, gas, or medical care.
So... I know I don't have a lot of readers here, but I'm asking for help. A good friend of ours has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise as much of what AJ owes so she doesn't have to worry about losing her house after six-plus months of hell. If you can't donate, that's alright -- we have a far better understanding of "insufficient funds in the account" than we ever wanted to have. All I'm asking is that you spread the word and help get the URL for the GoFundMe campaign in front of as many eyes as possible. (Crowdfunding doesn't work without the "crowd" part.) Here's the information:
Page/Campaign Name: "Please Help A 2-Time Cancer Survivor & Single Mom"
URL 1: https://gofund.me/4e66a550
URL 2: https://gofund.me/fcce9561
Both URLs link to the exact same page (we only have one campaign running); I don't know why but the GoFundMe site gave me the two different links depending upon which of the admin pages I was on when I clicked the "share" button, so I'm including both "just in case."
So there's what's been going on as of late... Any help is very, very appreciated.
Y'all stay healthy out there.
