Support Ellen's Cancer Treatment

Last year my Mom was diagnosed with stage 3b (inoperable) lung cancer. This follows only a few years after she suffered a stroke. But neither the stroke nor cancer knew my Mom is tough as nails. She fought through recovery from the stroke and regained a great deal of function and speech. After kicking the stroke's ass, she was ready for a bigger challenge. She's currently kicking cancer's ass and after a long and grueling chemo treatment, she is finally in partial remission.

Here is where it gets difficult. Due to the stroke my Mom has been disabled and unable to work. She receives Medicare and Medical, but her treatment leaves a huge (co-pay) gap in coverage every month that she can't even begin to cover. We also learned that medical centers are not really keen on long term payment plans from cancer patients. She has been lucky enough to receive some care access grants which have covered her treatment thus far. Unfortunately those grants ran out a couple months ago. We are going to get her signed up for a Medicare Advantage plan in September, which should help relieve some of this burden. However, because of the technicalities of switching plans, it would result in an interruption of her treatment. We want to avoid this and keep the remission momentum going until the current course of treatment is over.

Here is the ask: to the extent you can help, my Mom needs it. Whether it's $1 or $20, anything would make a dent in helping my Mom continue her treatment. The goal amount represents the cost of the co-pays and necessary tests she needs. Unfortunately cancer doesn't wait for finances to get worked out. We've got to keep taking the fight to cancer as long as we can. With your help, I hope we can continue to do that.