Ann has metastatic breast cancer and needs financial help

Hello Friends, Community, and Kind-Hearted People of the Internet. This fundraising is for me, Ann, a person caught in circumstances that exceed my capacity to cope.

I have been navigating cancer for 16 years. First in the early days as a single mom, and now as a disabled woman without a partner or family to assist. During this time, the cancer that once started in my breast has progressively metastasized throughout my body: bone marrow, omentum, liver, stomach, colon, ribs, clavicle, skull.

And just last month, also to my left eye.

Each time the cancer spreads, I suffer loss of income due to reduction in work hours. Being self-employed means that when I am too ill to work, I rely on my savings (and sometimes also my close friends) to get by. The savings are now depleted and I need help with paying rent and covering my basic needs while undergoing chemotherapy and other treatments in an attempt to prolong my life (and now too, my vision). Because even in the face of these challenges, I am not done living.

But cancer survivorship is hard. And it’s even harder doing it without the resources to support basic day-to-day needs. If you have the inclination and means, your donation will help me remain securely housed, fed, and insured. Prayers, words of encouragement, and affirmations of worth and dignity are also welcome. Asking for help, especially so openly and publicly, feels hard, humiliating, and humbling.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Much love to all those facing this disease, or their own version of catastrophe. May we all find ways to lift one another with empathy and compassion as we make our way forward in this beautiful, bewildering, messy, and sacred gift of the human experience.

L'Shalom and L’Chaim,

To peace and to life,

Ann