Cancer Costs: Help bring Barbara Maloney home

Update 8/17/2021: 
We are incredibly grateful for all of the support that our friends and family have provided us since the creation of this GoFundMe. Sadly, on August 15th our loving Mom passed away. We are heartbroken because we thought we would have more time with her. On Friday, August 13th we were able to bring Mom home. She was able to be home with our dad and our dogs until she passed. On August 15th, we paused the ability to donate to this fund as we figured out what to do with this page. We will now open it back up for those who wish to provide contributions to support care for our dad. If you wish to provide support to our family through this fund, please know it will go towards helping us care for our father. 

Previous Fund Text:
Our loving Mom, Barbara Maloney (67 yo), was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer in June 2021. This all came so suddenly because she was in good health, and had been screened for lung cancer in February 2021 which showed no indication of any cancer. She was in good health through April until suddenly she started to have some neck pain, and after five weeks of physical therapy, she was sent to get an MRI at the end of May 2021 which led to a cascade of testing. After 2 months of testing, radiation, and spending over a month in the hospital, cancer has spread throughout her body, and the window for being fit enough to get chemo is closing. Doctors have told us we have two options: 1) a nursing home or 2) take her home with private duty caregivers. Our Mom’s wish is to live out the rest of her life at home. Help us make that wish come true.

Making Mom’s wish come true:

This GoFundMe is to help us fulfill Mom’s wish to live out the rest of her life in our home with our father and two dogs. To come home, Mom needs to have 24/7 care to help assist with daily living. The costs of private duty home health aides are steep. Any support to help us pay for Mom’s care is greatly appreciated.

Mom is the bedrock of our family:

She is a carebear and a wonderful mother. She’s always been a lover of nature, exercise, and the simple things in life. Mom left a career as a professional dancer and the opportunity to be a high-flying trapeze performer to become a mother. Full of love and never-ending support for her family, she encouraged adventure, empathy, and to follow your dreams by being the best that you can be on your own terms. She is the kind of person that if you call at 2 am, she’ll pick up the phone to listen to whatever you need to talk about. She has a natural manner of making you laugh and smile, and always genuinely looks for the positive things in people. She has always been THE person who you could turn to when you are in need--our bedrock.

Mom spread a lot of love in her care for others:

Mom’s love for caring for people extended into her second career as a special education assistant. She cared for children with special needs for over 20 years and really loved it. Her well of patience never seemed to run dry. As our grandparents’ health began to decline, Mom took on the responsibility of caring for them without hesitation. She has been a caregiver for the last decade all while still working a full-time job. She took care of our grandmother before she passed away, then she took care of our grandfather for the last years of his life. She made sure that our grandfather could be independent until the ripe age of 90 until he lost his eyesight. In 2015, our dad had a massive stroke and discovered he had an aortic aneurysm on the verge of rupture. His surgery to treat the aneurysm resulted in our father losing multiple toes which forever impacted his ability to be independent. Over the last 6 years, our mother took care of our grandfather and our dad while working a full-time job. She always told us that caring for your family was the right thing to do.

Our Nana (our father’s mother) always used to joke that our Mom was an angel sent from heaven to care for our crazy dad (those who know him, know that he is definitely not from this world). We believe she's an angel who has delivered on spreading love to all those in her life. She is the kind of person who always sends our extended family cards at all major holidays and birthdays. She knows how important these small gestures are to those we love.

Cancer struck at her moment of opportunity

After all of the caregiving she’s done for my grandparents and my father, a once-in-100 years pandemic struck as well. Given our father’s compromised health kept us all separated for most of the year. The pandemic also forced her to retire early from her position as a teaching assistant in order to protect her and our father’s health. Mom has kept dad safe during the pandemic.

With all the positivity and hope brought on by vaccines and the freedom of retirement, we thought this year would be one of opportunity and not a tragedy. We thought we would be able to spend more time together, and she would get the opportunity to adventure to places she wanted to go, but couldn’t because she’s put others first. This was supposed to be her time. Mom also just became a grandma in the fall of last year as her son, Freddy, and his wife, Samantha, had their first child, Liam. Mom is so excited to be a grandmother, and shower Liam with love. To teach him the ways of loving-kindness. Like so many during the pandemic, she only just recently had the first opportunity to see Liam in April. While she has been fighting each day to try and get better, being stuck in the hospital for over a month has prevented her from being able to see little Liam. We want to keep her home to extend the time she has with him and our family in the comfort of her own home.

How your support will be used:

Home Health Aides that will provide mom with support for her activities of daily living will cost on average $25/ hr. With 24 hr support, we need to cover the out-of-pocket costs of at least $4,200 per week or roughly $110,000 over the next six months. Any funds not used for the direct care of our mom will be put towards home health aides to eventually care for our father who will need that support in the near future.

Thank you in advance

We generously thank any of you who may be willing to help us mitigate these costs to make Mom’s wish to be home come true. - Fred and Sean