Help Amber's Family Overcome Medical Crisis
UPDATE:
To my friends and family:
If you are able to help, awesome. If you can only pray, thank you! Amber is nearing the end of her cancer battle, drs are saying 3 to 6 months. She is now on oxygen 100% of the time and mostly on what feels like house arrest to her.
Any little donation can dramatically improve her family's situation in these last few months she is still with us before she goes to hospice.
For those of you have already donated or prayed, thank you, may God bless you, your family and friends for always!
My prayer for all of you is to have the happiest of Holidays with your loved ones and friends. Our time on this earth is so very short, don't take a second for granted.
Funny thing about God's love is, it's always available to us. Even the bad times are better with God in our hearts than the alternative, having no time left at all with our loved ones and to also be estranged from God.
GOD WILL ALWAYS TAKE YOU BACK, no questions asked, just ask him to be a part of your life and HE WILL ALWAYS SHOW UP, HE GUARANTED THIS TO US FROM THE VERY BEGINNING!
Just love your family the best way you know how, God sees your efforts, he recognizes what a difficult thing it is to ask you to love your enemies. I believe he is proud of you because he knows better than any of us, how difficult family & friends at times can be to like, much less love unconditionally 100% of the time.
But if we pray for that strength to love unconditionally, he will give you the strength you need to get thru not just the Holidays, not just the good times, but he will give you the most strength when the chips are down. LOVE your family/friends in spite of who they are, when you love them just because they are humans, they are your family and your friends...God's miracles heal our hearts.
Thank you and happiest of everything to you and yours, you're worthy and you deserve to be happy! I am grateful you are my FB friend, even if we are only acquaintances. I BELIEVE IT IS NO ACCIDENT YOU ARE one of MY FB connections. GOD has a plan for all of us, and you just never know who God will put in your path to raise you up, but he knows the why! Trust in him and he will see to it that we will all be more than just ok, he will help us to prosper beyond our wildest dreams and expectations.
ORIGINAL GOFUNDME POST BELOW:
Please take the time to read the story below. I would sincerely appreciate both your time and any assistance you are able to pledge.
I am creating this GoFundMe for my best friend, Amber Cox, because she is too ill to manage it herself. She also finds it almost impossible to ask others for help, so I am asking on her behalf.
Amber is losing her battle with cancer and will succumb within the next 6-9 months, but not even the drs really know, how long she has left to live, it's just their best guess.
Unfortunately, Amber's family have all passed away - both her grandparents and her parents. Her only sibling, her brother, is fighting serious personal battles and unable to help her emotionally or financially. Amber's husband, Chase, has lost his parents too. They simply have zero family to step in and help out.
I would like to tell you about Amber (below), her situation and to plead with each of you, my friends/family and even the kindness of strangers, to donate any amount, even $1, to help cover her prescriptions and some of her family's bills for 1 month. They are absolutely drowning right now in both sorrow and debt.
Paying for the basic necessities - rent, electricity, water, food, her prescriptions and so forth is proving insurmountable for them. On Friday, their landlord started the eviction process because they are $300 behind on their rent.
(HAPPY TO UPDATE AMBER AND HER FAMILY WERE ABLE TO MOVE TO A MORE SUITABLE HOME IN OCTOBER 2024)
I am not trying to raise enough $ to cover her chemotherapy treatments, which are $97,000 per infusion, without insurance. She is waiting for Medicaid coverage to restart her chemotherapy she had to discontinue because she lost her health insurance in May.
(HAPPY TO REPORT PFIZER HAS AGREED TO PROVIDE HER CHEMO DRUG FOR FREE, SHE HAS HAD 2 IN FUSIONS TO DATE (DEC 2024 & A SECRET ANGEL DONOR anonymously PAID AMBERS entire HOSPITAL BILL AT MD ANDERSON IN FULL THIS December 2024, making her last 2 chemo infusions possible)
I help Amber financially as much as I am able and I continue to help her in other ways too - transportation back n forth to MD Anderson so she doesn't have to pay for parking and other things of that nature.
Now that things have progressed to destitute for Amber and her family, I am looking to my friends and family for additional support. She is now relying on the generosity of others to just make it - not to get rich, not to pay for her chemotherapy, but just to get her family's living expenses covered for 1 month. Obviously, if I could raise more than a month's worth of funds that would be ideal, but even a 1 month reprieve from her bills would be life changing for her family, while she continues to work on a plan for her family to financially survive..
My husband and I are donating a brand new, expensive, quality SMART WATCH to give away as part of this fundraiser .The top contributor to Amber's fund will receive this SMART WATCH from us. We would pawn it and give the money to Amber, but as most of us know, you don't get anywhere near what your item is worth at a pawn shop.
ABOUT AMBER:
Amber has end stage cervical and lung cancer, she is 39 years old. She has a husband, Chase, and two children, Rylie -age 8 and Drake (who has Autism and is nonverbal) - age 14.
UPDATE, AMBER'S HUSBANDS PREVIOUS COMPANY THAT HAD LAID.HIM OFF OUT OF NOWHERE REHIRED HIM!) Her husband was recently laid off from work due to downsizing and is diligently looking for a new job. He has progressed to the last interview for 3 different jobs; however, was not chosen. Chase is committed to his job search and is willing to take any position to support his family. So, to my Houston/local family/friends, if you are looking for skilled labor, I have just the guy for you, let me know. I pray he will find something soon. However, Amber's family, like many of our own families, needs two incomes to survive. And truly, they are only trying to survive.
To add insult to injury, Amber was let go from her job on May 6th because of excessive absences (due to her illness and treatments). Losing her job has meant she has lost her health insurance and is unable to continue her chemotherapy until her Medicaid is processed. Medicaid has told her it will take several weeks. Amber, up until her termination at work, was receiving her last "experimental treatment-chemotherapy" treatment.
Amber has been fighting for her life for over 2 years. When she was finally diagnosed, remission or cure was never even a remote possibility. She was told it was too aggressive and she would not survive. The doctors prescribed treatments to manage the cancer and buy her time, if possible. In the process of trying to manage her cancer, about 9 months ago, the radiation she received both destroyed one of her kidneys AND ruptured her large intestine.
Amber was at home when her intestine ruptured. Amber, being tough Amber for her kids, insisted her pain and discomfort were only side effects of the radiation she received the day before and it would pass. Thankfully, her husband went against her wishes and called an ambulance. When she arrived at the hospital she was diagnosed with severe, life-threatening sepsis. By the grace of God, they rushed her to surgery and removed both the damaged "dead" kidney and the majority of her large intestine. She awoke in recovery only to be faced with devastating reality she had 1 less kidney and an irreversible, colostomy bag.
Having only 1 kidney has made chemotherapy even more difficult to endure and she is no longer a candidate for radiation therapy.
Amber has been in 2 clinical trials for 2 different experimental, chemotherapy drugs for patients that have failed all other treatment options. The 2nd trial, the trial she was enrolled in before she lost her health insurance, is her last hope to extend her life for any amount of time. Unfortunately, thus far, the drug is NOT producing the results the doctors are looking for and that she needs to live. Because she has had to suspend her treatments (due to loss of her health insurance) until her Medicaid is effective, Her doctors have informed her she may not be eligible to continue her participation in the trial if too much time lapses between her last infusion and restarting treatment. Also, because her results thus far are not positive, her cancer is very aggressive-it has metastasized beyond her cervix and lungs to her lymph nodes and other organs, she should not get her hopes up.
I think we can all read between the lines, the drs are telling her in the most empathetic way possible, she will succumb to her cancer soon and she should accept that palliative care is her best and really only option.. The drs say she will die fast. I actually pray it will be fast because watching someone you love suffer is beyond words.
What does palliative care look like to an uninsured person, this is exactly what it looks like....Amber can't pay out of pocket to see any Dr, so she ends up in the ER two or three times a week. Each time they give her an IV of strong pain medicine while she is in the ER. THEN, they promptly discharge her the same day with no prescription to manage her pain at home AND tell her to follow-up with her oncologist. How does she follow-up when the Dr visit is $500 for cash pay patients??? But when she had health insurance, a visit to the ER resulted in her being admitted for a minimum of 4 days and prescriptions to take at home to manage her pain and other ailments. Our healthcare system is absolutely BROKEN!
Please, if this story touched you, if you have had this experience with a loved one, or maybe you went thru this personally, and you are able, please consider donating to this fundraiser. if you are able to donate any amount, even $1, it will make a huge difference for Amber and her family. I understand we are all struggling in our own ways and asking you to help someone you don't even know, well that can be a difficult decision. However, you do know me, and I hope all of you know my heart.
Soon, I will no longer have my friend, BUT if I can do anything to ease some of her struggles, her suffering, while she is still with us, I will try! I am putting all my faith in the generous nature of my friends, my family and total strangers to help Amber in any way you are able.
Please feel free to text, message or phone me if you have any questions or concerns.
Thank you all very much for taking the time to read this and help if you are able. Both Amber, her family and I are extremely grateful for your empathy, prayers and generosity.
Organizer
