Let’s help Daphne cover surgery costs and get well soon!

Hi, this is Jenn, here to help raise some funds to get my dear friend back on track…

Daphne has been diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer. For those of you who know a little bit about it or have had experience with it, it’s DCIS ER & PR+ and HER2-. There are three large lesions that will require full double mastectomy.

They found the cancer in the living donor program- she was set to donate her kidney to a friend in need on May 22nd, and the mammogram was the last hurdle to get over before the transplant. Needless to say, this cancer diagnosis was an incredible shock. But Daph never does anything halfway. She’s tirelessly there for the people she loves, volunteers regularly and even her day job is in nonprofit education. She’s an active member of Rotary, always hosting folks in her home, and of course making the beautiful music we all know and love.

Daph’s job is being amazing about giving her the time she needs to heal, and providing some insurance coverage. But as we all know, there are so many things insurance won’t cover. For those of you who know her, she wants answers and digs into the details like few people can. It should never be on the person who is sick to have to work so hard to find solutions, but she’s done the work. There is a clear path forward now.

The Center for Restorative Breast Surgery does the exact surgery that will use her own tissue to rebuild her and make her whole again with minimal incisions and risks to her lymphatic system, blood vessels, or nerves, in a comfortable, local facility where Mike can be at her side (while still taking care of Morgan and not losing work), and keep her body intact so that she can continue on the path to donating her kidney when this is all said and done.

Mike and Daphne are already financially in for her high deductible / out of pocket, and the astonishing costs of things listed under limitations and exclusions in her policy. With daily life and these already insane bills, it’s too much to get to the numbers needed.

The surgery itself will cost $12,220 after the insurance does its share. She should be covered for anesthesia, radiology and pathology, genomic testing and lymphatic care afterward, but things keep popping up that are not covered.

She can’t schedule surgery without raising an initial $7870, and time is of the essence: this problem isn’t getting any smaller. We need to get her in the second week of August, which means we need to schedule as soon as possible.

I’d love to see my beautiful friend a lot less stressed out, and I don’t want to have to see her settle for something less than her loving, selfless heart deserves. If we can make the $12,200 goal for the surgery itself, that will be amazing. Anything above and beyond that can help with the additional costs of whatever comes next, be it chemo or radiation, or even the things she will need to buy to be comfortable (like bras and the gear she will need afterward to help heal). This is already going to be a huge surgery, with the bonus of being tossed into menopause with the hormone therapy. Financial stress on top of that is just too much.

Daph, the same woman who worked 90 hour weeks to stay out of hot water after her divorce, has been trying to solve this on her own. Crowdfunding was her last choice, but she’s allowing me to reach out to you, the folks that know and love her the way I do, to be part of her recovery. Cancer isn’t exactly the kind of thing you can battle by working 90 hour weeks. I know we can pull together to take at least this part of the burden off her shoulders. Thank you to everyone who contributes and for the positive thoughts as we help our girl through this difficult moment.

We appreciate you!

Jenn Howard

with Daphne and Mike ♥️