Update: I didn’t know before that GoFundMe takes a cut of donations, so please feel free to Venmo any donation instead if you’re comfortable! (no worries at all though if you’d rather donate through GoFundMe!) My venmo: venmo.com/u/jeffwww

Hi everyone, this is incredibly difficult for me to write, but my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer 7 months ago in April, and most recently lymphoma in September. Needless to say, it has been an incredibly difficult year for my mom and my family. Things have never been easy for my mom; she was deported in 2012 from the US and permanently barred from re-entry, meaning that since I left for college in 2020 my mom has been living in China all on her own. And because of financial costs, my mom also never bought any private health insurance. All of this meant that when my mom was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, she has had to fight cancer alone with no family to support her (all of my family lives in the US and my parents divorced a while ago), and with all costs for her cancer treatment being out-of-pocket. Since her diagnosis, my family and I have been doing everything we can to emotionally and financially support my mom.

Everyone in my family like my brother, my aunt, my cousins, and more extended family have all done everything we can (jobs, savings, stocks, private loans) to collectively raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for my mom's treatments (surgeries, chemotherapy, medicine, painkillers, caretakers, hospital room, etc.). For the past year, I've also been working multiple jobs while in school to support my mom and also pay for loans I took out to pay for her treatments. For a while, it seemed like enough.

However, in September, when my mom's doctors told us that her breast cancer spread to her lymph nodes and turned into lymphoma, we realized just how difficult this fight would continue to be. While my family has continued to do everything we can to pay for everything ourselves by taking loans and borrowing from close friends, it has gotten to the point where we are simply running out of options (my mom's upcoming treatments will cost around $50,000; however, future care and medicine will likely cost even more). With no savings left - including all my parent's retirement savings - my mom told me that there's nothing more we can do and to just let the lymphoma run its course. While lymphoma has a relatively high survival rate, if it's untreated it can very quickly spread around the body through the blood as it is one of the most spreadable cancers. If we don't continue my mom's treatment, the doctor told us the cancer is very likely to spread to other areas like the lungs, which can be significantly more fatal and costly to treat. Because of this, I can't just let my mom's lymphoma go untreated. I can't let my mom go.

Even though my mom says we're out of options, I can't give up because I don't know what I would do without her. My mom raised me all on her own from when I was 10 years old, and I owe everything to her. I refuse to give up, but I also know that my capabilities as just a college student are limited.

That's why as much as I hate to be a burden to others and to ask for help, I am asking now for anything to support my mom. Any donation, even just a dollar, would mean the world to my mom and my family. Every dollar will go directly to paying for my mom's treatment and would go incredibly far in just giving my mom hope. To put it bluntly, the past few weeks, seeing our financial situation and experiencing the pain of chemotherapy and multiple surgeries, my mom has come very close to giving up. However, I've told her to stay strong and to let me worry about the money, because all I want is for her to live her dream of seeing me and my brother live our lives, start our own families, succeed, etc. - as any mom deserves. Your support will truly go so far in making my mom's dream a reality.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for your support and for reading this. Even if you cannot afford to chip in (I completely understand how tight money can be at this time), I'm immensely grateful for you giving my family some of your time. If you can share this post with your friends and family and bring attention to my mom's situation, it would mean everything to my mom and I. Thank you so much!

Also, at my mom's request, I haven't included any photos of her in the hospital. That's not how she wants to be seen. So, instead, I've included past photos of her healthy and happy. With your support, I hope to take many more photos with my mom strong and healthy. Thank you again!