I Beat Cancer, Now Near Homeless. Please Help Me Get Back Up

Hi, my name is Serena. I survived cancer, but may die from homelessness. Please help!

Diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer, metastasized to lymph node, back in August of 2023, I underwent two rounds of chemo, surgery, and a month of daily radiation, getting to the other side of all that on July 8th, 2024 (my last day of radiation). I’m now on hormone blockers for the next 7 to 10 years, still having the chemo port implanted in my chest, “just in case”.

Through this awful thing, I received the major gift of knowing that I am not alone and that I have so much more love around you me than I ever knew. And thanks to the help, prayers, good wishes from from so many, around me and from far away, I was able to not only find the strength I didn’t know I had, to make it through all this, but to find growing within me a renewed will to live life to the best of my ability, when I got to the other side of this.

And now I’m here on the other side, but facing an overwhelmingly darker prospect: homelessness. And I can’t see the other side of this. It took me a long time to finally get over my resistance to putting this GoFundMe up, hoping I could find a way through on my own, or with help from around me, but it just wasn’t possible and I finally got it up on September 7th. It’s now almost December and I living in daily, growing, abject fear of not making my goal and becoming homeless for the New Year.

I had so hoped to do all in my ability in bringing in money, in the midst of weeks filled with doctor’s appointments and necessary phone calls (for myself and my mom, for whom I’m sole Caretaker), along with other things coming due, things with deadlines that had to be done, are having to be done, ASAP, because of my situation—things deferred during treatment, things that need to be done due to my situation, etc., and it has been a real struggle to so much as list my belongings for sale. I don’t own anything of value to begin with, so that wouldn’t really bring in much, but I do need to get rid of everything, for the now very probable outcome of my becoming homeless. I couldn’t make it through it, not at my age, in my condition, on the medication I’m on which cannot be abruptly stopped without dire consequences, in NY, winter, in a place where there is not a homeless person to be seen from miles. I have no idea where they will put me, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be somewhere I could make it up from.

One of the things I had hoped, because it’s there are so many opportunities for it around here, was to raise the money immediately for jumping all over making a bunch of crafts to sell at all the local holiday fairs. But that never happened and that time has come and gone, now. I’ve barely been able to scrape by on my utilities, auto expenses (car lease payment and insurance, and gas—vital to getting myself to and from appointments, urgent care, ER, grocery shopping, pharmacy, and all the same for my mom), the most moderate of groceries, and some other, very, very few and absolutely necessary basic things (I’ve been doing my best to make regular updates. I’d do them more regularly but there have been more setbacks than milestones and I’ve found myself with very little of hope to talk about).

I want to interject with my immense gratitude for the oh so many amazing people donating, sharing, even doing their own fundraisers, for me, by taking the proceeds of a week or two of their online shops and donating them all to me for this cause! My heart is overwhelmed by the love and generosity I’ve been receiving from so many!

I want nothing more than to get through this nightmare and be able to pay back, or forward! And my biggest worry is that my mom won’t have the help she needs for all the things I’ve long been handling for her. No one else knows a thing about her affairs and that’s another thing I’m desperately trying to handle—putting all that together so that it can be passed on to someone else to do for her, but there is no one who has the time and will make the effort I make in following up on things for my mom. There are so many things that take so much time and no one has it, with their own families to take care of. My heart breaks knowing that she will not turn to anyone else for help and I’m so scared that my end means her end, as well. Had I not been there, there have been at least three times where that would have been so. It is what has kept me here, near her, rather than going out to make my own life.

Please help me turn this around. I absolutely cannot do it alone. You’re my only hope now, you, the people out there who have it in their hearts and their ability to help me by donating or sharing, or both. I have a tiny network and they’ve given so, so much I’ve been blown away by their generosity. I keep reaching the same eyes without your help in sharing this. I had been doing my utmost to do so, myself, with the help of my friends, but my ability has been hobbled by a very badly timed restriction on social media (the mistake is not on my end, but no amount of desperate appealing has had any effect, whatsoever, and it spans a certain company’s platform, making it so that my hands have been tied. Next to no one is seeing my shares, anymore, and this restriction is going on for so long, it’s already taken up extremely precious time and threatens to eat up all the time I have left. There seems no end to it. So I’m absolutely relying on help from others in sharing and getting it out there.

My most basic and urgent needs:

• A few months necessary, most basic expenses, in order to allow me the space to continue my treatments, finally see the specialists that will help me get to the root of the issues keeping me from being able to function normally and and getting a full-time job and living a normal life.

• My auto lease is about to expire, leaving me, stranded: it is a Honda Civic LX from 2021 with less than 5000 miles on it. The residual value is far, far less than the market value. I need to buy it out or else I will have no means of transporting myself to, and from all of my medical appointments, doing the same for my mother, doing my grocery shopping, going on, Pharmacy runs, taking myself to the ER and urgent care when necessary.

• I had been in the middle of extensive emergency dental work, last spring. I am not asking for the money for all of my dental work, I’m only asking for the money to take care of the two most urgent issues – the two dead teeth, harboring packets of infection that may spread into my jaw at any time.

There are a few other things:

EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS If enough people give, even a little bit each, I will have the chance to get up! Having the help, the cushion, and not losing my car, would help me finish up on my immediate medical necessities and then put my full focus on finding full time work, multiple jobs if need be.

I know they say don’t sound desperate, but I am, and I don’t want to lie to you. At the same time I want NOTHING MORE THAN TO SURVIVE, to get up on my own two feet, to be there to help my mom again, and to pay all the generosity forward!! Please help me have that chance. Whether it’s by donating or sharing or both. Deeply grateful for any help sent my way!

I have been, and will continue to be transparent with how the money is spent — rest, assured that it is only going towards most basic necessities – and I will continue to update.

P.S. last night, on Friday, November 22nd, I finally got the time to input all of the donations I had received from people off-line — either in person, through Venmo, Zelle, or PayPal. I do not offer those payments here as they are not guaranteed by GoFundMe. If you are a friend of mine, and know how to get in touch with me, or if you are a friend of a friend, have our mutual friend get in touch with me if you would feel more comfortable, donating that way. I noticed that GoFundMe has put a notification to the effect of my mentioning off-line donations, and I wanted to address that myself. I was going to address it at my next update , which has been a while coming because a lot has been going on, but I came back into address this now, to make absolutely sure to assure everyone that it’s is all very legit. In fact, it was because of my desire for transparency, that I felt the need to make sure to get all of those sums recorded and registered as going towards this goal. and in fact, the only way I knew to do that is because GoFundMe has the option to add in these off-line donations, which, of course, they do not take fees from, because they were made off-line. So it is all part of the platform tools available for us. I just felt that the message they put up might sound worrisome to some people who weren’t aware of the option and wanted to quickly clear it up.

Please believe me when I tell you that my intentions are 100% in integrity, and if you have any questions, I don’t know if there’s a way to reach out to me but feel free to do so and I will address them in my updates openly. thank you again. ❤️