It’s difficult to know how to begin asking for help like this, especially for someone who has spent so much of her life being the person others turn to when they need help.

Melissa is a single mom, a mental health counselor, and one of the most caring and giving people I know. Every day, she shows up for others—helping people navigate fear, grief, anxiety, trauma, and some of the hardest seasons of their lives. Now, very suddenly, she is facing one of the hardest and most frightening seasons of her own.

Melissa was recently diagnosed with DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ), an aggressive, hormone-driven form of breast cancer. Melissa has been told that she faces an alarmingly high risk of recurrence with a lumpectomy, which led her to make the incredibly difficult decision to undergo a mastectomy.

Melissa is self-employed and has built her own private mental health counseling practice. As an entrepreneur, she is currently uninsured—and the financial reality of fighting cancer without health insurance is staggering.

Her mastectomy is scheduled for September 25, 2026 and because of the risk involved, waiting until she can obtain insurance during the next enrollment period is not an option. Making matters more difficult, Melissa’s income depends on her ability to see clients. Surgery means she will have no choice but to step away from her practice while she recovers. As a single mother, there is no second household income to fall back on. At the exact moment her expenses are becoming overwhelming, her ability to earn an income will also be temporarily taken away.

Even with the hospital’s self-pay discount, she is being asked to pay approximately $75,000 for the mastectomy alone. She will then need reconstructive surgery shortly afterward, and between the surgeries, hospital expenses, physicians, testing, follow-up care, and recovery, she could be facing close to $200,000 in medical debt. She has already spent thousands of dollars out of pocket just on the testing, appointments, and care necessary to get to this point.

Melissa is also raising a 16-year-old on her own. Like so many moms, she was supposed to be thinking about things like helping her teenager get a first car, preparing for the end of high school, and looking ahead to college in just a couple of years. Instead, she is suddenly trying to figure out how to pay for cancer surgery while continuing to provide for her child and protect the future she has worked so hard to build for them.

That is why I am asking for help on Melissa’s behalf.

Every dollar raised will go toward the enormous out-of-pocket costs associated with her mastectomy, reconstructive surgery, hospital and physician bills, testing, follow-up care and recovery, as well as helping provide some financial stability while she is unable to work.

Melissa has spent her career sitting beside people during some of the most difficult moments of their lives. She has listened, encouraged, supported, and helped others find their way forward when life suddenly became overwhelming.

Now, she needs people to show up for her.

If you are able to give, please know that no amount is too small. Every donation helps take one piece of this enormous burden off her shoulders and allows her to put more of her energy where it belongs—on her health, her recovery, and her family.

And if donating isn’t possible right now, sharing this fundraiser is just as meaningful. Every share helps Melissa’s story reach someone we could never reach on our own.

Thank you for taking the time to read Melissa’s story, for sharing it, for donating if you are able, and most of all, for helping remind her that she doesn’t have to carry all of this alone.