Donation for Janeth's Funeral

Hi, my name is Maurice and I'm fundraising for my Mom who was diagnosed with cancer on Dec 20, 2023. This journey has been the toughest that I've had to share with my Dad, my brother, and my wife who has been such an amazing support to all of us. I'd like to share a bit of the past few months and why I find myself in need to set up this GoFundMe.

This started back around August when my Mom started to have lower pelvic pain and unusual bleeding, as if she started having her period again. Going promptly to the doctor was not the easiest to do since she doesn't have any medical insurance. Neither pPrivate health insurance nor insurance through the public marketplace were options, or were not feasible. As a result, every appointment has had to be paid out of pocket. That means that any office visit would be anywhere from $150 -$200 per visit. Add an ultrasound to that, and now you're tacking on significant expenses very quickly. I encouraged her to make the appointments since the pain was starting to affect her quality of life, and told her not to worry about expenses as health comes first, and we can pay medical bills little by little. First appointment with Primary Care Physician wasn't available until September, at which point she was referred to OB/GYN. She had her first appointment with a Gynecologist in September and then was referred to get an ultrasound. The Gynecologist mentioned that she had an intramural fibroid in her uterus that explains the pain and the bleeding as those could be symptoms of such a fibroid. He mentioned that a hysterectomy would be the easiest solution rather than removing the fibroid which would result in a significantly more invasive surgery. My Mom told the doctor that she didn't have any insurance, and the doctor was a bit hesitant on setting up a surgery he stated would be very expensive out of pocket. In any case, the doctor scheduled a follow-up appointment for January 2024 to see if the fibroid might shrink on its own (I later found out fibroids don't typically shrink but get bigger) and also to give my Mom some time to find some short-term health insurance. The insurance was still a no go, but I did sign up my mom for a Healthshare that offered some help from the Church community.

Now it's Thanksgiving time and my parents and my brother were going to come down to Texas from New Jersey to visit my wife and I and our 1 year old baby. My Mom's health based on what she mentioned over the phone seemed to deteriorate and the pain was affecting her mobility and desire to eat. They were planning on cancelling their trip, but I encouraged them to come down as we don't know what other opportunity they would have to come down to visit. They decided to come down. When I picked them up at the airport, I could tell my Mom wasn't well at all. She had lost a lot of weight and looked very fragile. She was in worse shape than she had led to believe over the phone. She was in incredible pain, and I decided to set up an appointment with my wife's OB/GYN who had had experience removing fibroids with minimally invasive surgery. Getting an appointment is always a bit tough and there wasn't anything for about a month. My wife helped a lot in calling each day to see if there were any cancellations and to describe the urgency of the situation. We were blessed that there was a cancellation for Dec 1, 2023. The day had come and my Mom was bent over in pain, and we went to the appointment. They were able to do another ultrasound on her. The ultrasound was concerning so the nurse told us that the doctor would like us to wait for him to come back to go over the results. What this ultrasound showed was very different than the one up in NJ. Doctor came back and said that he wouldn't be able to do any surgery because it looked like cancer and not a fibroid issue. This was devastating news for us. He referred us to a Gynecologic Oncologist for next steps. Now we are trying to set up an appointment and there weren't any appointments for about a month. Again we started calling to see if there are any cancellations. They stated they don't and that they work based on priority. They advised us to get an MRI. We scheduled that and everything just took time. Her pain was getting unbearable. We didn't make it to the MRI appointment as the pain got so bad and she wasn't eating, we decided to take her to the ER. They did the MRI there, and they reached out to the Gynecologic Oncologist that we were waiting to see. This actually helped speed things up and moved up the appointment to just a week out. The MRI did confirm there was a pelvic mass that looked very concerning. We now had our oncologist appointment for Dec. 14, 2023. We explained the symptoms again, and the doctor perform a biopsy. Then we were fit in for the next day for a CT Scan and lab work. After that, our next appointment was Dec 20. That was the day we officially go the cancer diagnosis that would change everything. The doctor told us that my Mom was no longer operable and that the cancer had spread to the intestines and the chest resulting in the diagnosis of Stage IVB Uterine Serous Carcinoma, a very aggressive cancer.

We then had to start working with setting up Chemotherapy right away if we were to have any chance of saving her. Not having medical insurance caused a lot of stress and anxiety as they would not render any services until the Healthshare from the Church would sign a Letter of Agreement guaranteeing payment. This took some back and forth, but eventually by God's grace all the pieces fell together and completed just in time for her second Chemo infusion on January 25th, as we had to pay the first one out of pocket since it hadn't gone through. For some perspective, that first session was a little over $4,000 alone!

The following week after her first Chemo on January 5th, she started to swell up with fluid (later I learned this is called ascites), and it go so bad that it was pressing upward from her abdomen and causing her to have a hard time breathing and her ribs started to push outward from the pressure. She could no longer eat as there was no room. This led to another ER visit where she was admitted and resulted in a Paracentesis to remove liquid from her abdomen. They removed 5 LITERS!!!! She felt relief, but the next day she started to feel that pressure build up very quickly again so the following day, they performed another paracentesis. They took out another 1.8 Liters of fluid. The hospital decided that she would need a drain installed into her abdomen so that we can drain her on a regular basis every 3 days. This really helped to improve her quality of life. She had her second Chemo infusion on January 25th, and she was feeling in better spirits despite the nausea that accompanied, she was eating more as her appetite was returning. It seemed things were going well.

Now February rolls around and we had noticed one of the incisions from the drain installation was starting to leak around the glue that was supposed to seal the incision. It appeared that she was filling up with fluid more quickly than we were taking out. We took her to the ER again, where the doctor there said to just put on glue, and he put on more glue and then discharged us. There were no Home Health agencies that were willing to come out to drain her without any medical insurance and they weren't entertaining any agreements from the Healthshare even though the they said they would pay for it. I had to become the nurse and drain her each time with help from my dad or my wife. However, when I tried to drain her, it was not really draining and the material seemed white and thickened. Drastically, one morning the glue popped off like a big scab, causing the fluid to burst all over Mom’s clothes, chair, and the floor. We had to use towels to clean up the ascites. I called the hospital, and they suggested to bring her in.

Little did we know that this would be her last hospital visit. Now this is March 1st when I brought her in. It turns out that she got a Staph infection. They tried another paracentesis, but the incision was oozing white pus and inside her body the pockets of fluid had thickened filled with the infection. They told me the Ancef antibiotic would not be able to address the infection in those pockets. They said we were "between a rock and a hard place". The infection would prevent further Chemo treatments, and the cancer would not allow to cure the infection. The only way to clear out the staph infection, was to open her up and wash out her organs of the thickened pus inside her. They said she would not survive such surgery in her current weakened state.

After two weeks of being on the antibiotic and not responding to it (her White Blood Count kept spiking even during the antibiotic), Mom decided it was time to go home. She was tired of them taking blood out of her twice a day, and there were no more places on her skinny arms to draw any more blood. The hospital had thrown in the towel and was told that it is time for hospice.

I brought her back into our home March 15th, so that she can pass away amongst her family, as she didn't want to die in a hospital. She was happy to be home, but knew that she had very little time. Without being able to receive anymore Chemo, the cancer started to take over and her legs started to swell along with her abdomen to the point where she was unable to walk anymore with her walker by April 1st, and started to loose her voice. Slowly she could no longer speak and eventually no longer eat by April 12th.

We were no longer able to communicate with her by April 13th, and she passed away on April 16th. She finally is able to rest and be with our Lord. We are now trying to coordinate her funeral and discovered that this is no large expense, but an outrageous expense. That brings me to Gofundme to reach out to friends and loved ones for assistance with all the debt we have incurred and will incur. We are trying to do a traditional burial to try to put her to rest in a nice cemetery up in NJ, but moving her from Texas to New Jersey alone added a lot of expenses. However, all her friends and family are in New Jersey, so we wanted to make her home state her final resting place where she can be visited and commemorated.

I appreciate any donations to help for my Mom's remaining medical and funeral costs. This will be able to help my Dad, brother, and myself focus on grieving and be able to provide my Mom with a funeral and nice cemetery for her to rest in. As a wonderful wife, mother, and grandmother, we hope to do this one last gesture to honor her memory. Thank you all for your love and support.

Janeth's Obituary