Ashley's Fight: From Cancer to Financial Hardship

UPDATE:

It's stage 4 metastatic melanoma. As of right now, there is a huge mass in my right lung with several satellite tumors, medium sized diseased lymph nodes under both arms near my breasts, and small lesions on my liver. I will do a PET scan and brain MRI to see if it has spread to any other places.

Thank you for continuing to share this for me. I worry so much about the financial aspect of this and I want to be able to focus on fighting, healing, spending time with my family and making memories.

I am anticipating a phone call (hopefully Monday) from Compass Oncology to schedule my PET scan, brain MRI, and biopsy. It sounds like they will have to go in through my chest to extract a sample for that. My doctor is currently not considering surgery because of the variety of locations (with potentially more tumors if scans reveal them). He is opting to handle it systemically with Opdivo and other medicines that have shown great promise.

I'm struggling today. Stage 4 just sounds scary and I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. Watching my husband worry is hard. He's handling everything for me and giving me so much love and support, but I can see the worry on his face. I love him so much. Watching Avery and Carson wrestle with it is hard. They don't know the extent of everything... Just that Mom needs to take medicine that doesn't make her feel very good again. But they have a lot of questions and I don't have the answers. All I want to do is curl up and hug them forever.

My mom and sister will be here tomorrow and I'm so thankful. I imagine it's excruciating to be away from your daughter, sister when something like this happens. I'm glad they'll be here this week to help with appointments, kids and just spend quality time.

I will be continuing to teach while we await next steps, unless an appointment conflicts with that. I adore my class this year and I want them to finish out their elementary years on a high note.

Please keep sending love. It helps immensely to be surrounded with so much support as I face uncertainty. Sending love to you all.

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My name is Ashley Holden. I am a wife, mom, and 5th-grade teacher, and I could use some help. After a series of very difficult events that affected us financially, it's officially become too much to manage on our own.

In 2017 (when I was 35 and my kids were only 3 and 6) I was diagnosed with stage IIIb melanoma. The cancer was in my lymph nodes, so I had surgery to remove the lymph nodes from my left groin. After I healed a bit, I started a regimen of an immunotherapy drug called Yervoy. The goal was for me to complete 4 rounds of the infusion, but I only made it through 3 rounds before it became too toxic for my system and landed me in the hospital. After doing some investigating, the doctors found that the drug had thickened my stomach lining and made me bleed internally, so I was forced to stop treatment. Because my stomach was so damaged, I couldn't eat or drink much for months, and I ended up losing 40 lbs in 3 months. The bills were starting to rack up.

The stresses of life during this time period were overwhelming, and I ended up being divorced in the middle of the chaos. This was accompanied by more bills and far less income to cover them.

My oncologist was hopeful that my strong reaction to the drug meant that I had a complete immune response, but unfortunately, only 10 months later, the cancer returned. I went back in for a second surgery, more lymph nodes removed. I underwent 5 weeks of radiation treatment to my left groin and started a new immunotherapy oral drug combination (Taflinar/Mekinist). I took these pills every morning. The bills kept mounting.

In the middle of this second bout with cancer, I reconnected with a childhood friend, fell in love, and got married. He nursed me through terrible side effects from immunotherapy (fever, chills, the rigors, horrible headaches, nausea) this time, and I was so grateful to have him. Still am.

I ended up having to stop that medication as well because of toxicity, but since August 2019, I am proud to say I have been cancer and medicine-free! Unfortunately, catching up has eluded is however.

Things went from bad to worse only a couple of years later in 2022. My husband, Eric, had to have a complete knee replacement due to a motorcycle accident, as well as compression fractures on his spine, and a traumatic brain injury. To this day, his back hasn't healed, and he is unable to work because of this injury. We have applied for disability and are still waiting to hear back.

All of the medical debt was already overwhelming, but living on one income (a teacher's income) for the last 2.5 years has been a struggle we can't seem to get out of. I was doing some side work for a while that helped a little, but that ended on January 1 as well.

In addition, our rent has gone up $850 since 2018, and we've had to put even basic things on credit, which has only exacerbated the problem. I'm feeling very overwhelmed and stressed out and would be so appreciative of every ounce of help! I'm humbled to even ask.

Thank you for considering...