Help Angela through Cancer Treatments

Angela Callais is a wonderful therapist, committed activist, skilled birth/postpartum doula, caring community member, loving mother, friend, and healer. She is hilarious, kind, loving, generous, and deeply valued by the people close to her, as well as, by all who are touched by her work.

Angela is the person you know despite her traumatic and difficult life-long medical journey.

At 19 she survived a near-fatal car accident forcing her to spend 3 months in the hospital and over a year in intensive physical therapy re-learning how to use her body again--including how to hold a fork and how to walk. While her primary surgeon did an amazing job, building his career on the complexity of her case, not all of the repairs to her body were made to last. In her late 30’s the hardware from those surgeries began breaking down and compromising her ability to walk, requiring a double hip replacement. Her hip replacement surgeries were delayed multiple times–first because of the COVID pandemic, then due to a severe heart complication from Lyme carditis. As many of you know, last year her doctors were able to begin the process of replacing both hips, but the procedures did not go as planned.

During the first surgery, as her doctors worked for hours to remove the metal hardware from her femur implanted after the car accident in 2000, her body dislodged a blood clot which got causing a heart attack. Angela was revived with critical CPR (breaking 4 ribs) after 3.5 minutes of being unconscious. One surgery turned into 4 surgeries over the course of 10 days in ICU, weeks in a cardiac unit, and further time spent in ortho rehab where she learned to walk with her new right hip replacement. Ultimately, she spent a month in the hospital recovering. Many of you were kind enough to support her throughout that time. The second hip replacement was finished earlier this year, and with lots of PT she regained the ability to walk without pain for the first time in years.

Angela’s strength and will to live is amazing.

After living through all of that and regaining her ability to move and live independently, this summer was supposed to be about rebuilding her work and celebrating her life. She reopened her therapy practice a few months ago after the surgeries caused her to temporarily shut it down. Things were looking up, she had made it through the worst, and everything was moving forward for Angela.

Then, devastatingly, Angela was diagnosed with stage 4 cervical cancer and concurrent thyroid cancer in July.

No one ever expects to hear, “You have cancer,” however, the irony and magnitude of the diagnosis was overwhelming. The cervical cancer has a unique presentation: the tumor is small, but her lymph node involvement is massive. Due to the amount of lymph nodes involved, her doctors have declared it stage 4, but curable. So, there is hope. Angela has the possibility to live a normal life again after treatment. However, in order to cure the cancer she will need to undergo the most intensive treatment possible. She will have 5 weeks of daily targeted radiation, weekly chemotherapy, and internal radiation (brachytherapy.)

Angela will be unable to work again for months.

She will visit the hospital daily for 5 weeks. The intense fatigue, difficulty thinking, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, and pain from the simultaneous chemo and radiation will make most basic activities of daily living and self care impossible without support. Angela’s doctors are uncertain how long after treatment she will take to recover from these side effects, or when she will be able to return to work.

Following the treatment for the cervical cancer, Angela will then undergo treatment for the thyroid cancer. This treatment plan is in the beginning stages, but is expected to include a surgery to remove her thyroid and possible radiation. Of course, she will be unable to work during this time, as well. The thyroid cancer and cervical cancer are, surprisingly, unrelated.

Angela has barely recovered financially from her last year of medical trauma. These cancer diagnoses are completely shocking and unexpected. She has not been able to save or plan for it, and treatment cannot wait.

She is facing an uncertain and scary future both medically and financially.

In order to have the physical and emotional strength to beat cancer, she needs to have her basic needs met. She is working with an oncology social worker to apply for grants and benefits available to people with cancer, but there is little support for living expenses. As a self-employed small business owner she has no disability insurance, no PTO or worker’s comp, and she is currently ineligible for federal social security disability benefits (SSI/SSDI.)

Angela is desperate for our help. She needs our financial, emotional, and logistical help. She cannot survive without us. She’s counting on us to help her get through this.

Support from her last GoFundMe was incredible. She is so grateful for her friends, family, professional contacts and clients, and even people she didn’t know who donated. Every little bit added up. It helped SO much to give her a modicum of financial stability, and to know her community was rallying for her recovery. She was humbled by your support and already feels indebted to you, her community, which makes this ask even more difficult for her. But she needs it. She needs us.

So we are writing, again, to ask you to help Angela pay for her medical and living expenses.

This is a cruel and devastating blow that Angela does not deserve, and yet, we know that’s not how life goes. It will be healing for Angela, in so many ways, to know she has your support, yet again. If you know Angela, you know how she feels and what your help means to her. Just reading the names pop up on the screen with a donation, in any amount, brings a smile to her face, a memory to her mind, a hug from afar, and nurtures the healing she so desperately needs and deserves.

If you have ever wanted to give Angela something that would mean the world to her, now is the time.

Successful treatment means she will live a normal lifespan…and enjoy a life free from pain and medical trauma, though she will have monitoring for years to come. We are currently setting the goal at $25,000, which should cover her expenses through the rest of 2023.

If just 250 friends donate $100 each, we reach our goal within days and put Angela’s mind to ease about her finances before she even has to begin her first treatment. What a gift that would be for her. We are serious when we say any amount helps! Think about it like this, $5 will pay for parking at the cancer center for a day–$25 will pay for parking for a week. $50 will fill up her gas tank. $100 will pay for a grocery bill, even though there are so few foods she will be able to eat during the treatments. $250 will pay a utility bill. $500 will help with her mortgage. $1000 will begin to secure stability to keep her in her warm, familiar home where her compromised immune system will be protected from communicable diseases like the flu and COVID. Any amount helps financially and every donor helps her emotionally.

If you are not able to donate the best thing you can do is SHARE this post with all of your networks, friends, and family. Put out a donation jar at your work, or arrange a donation pool at your clubs and community organizations. Someone you know will be touched by her story and will want to donate. Please give them the opportunity to help Angela and allow Angela to be helped by them. Paying it forward is more than a saying, it’s literally life-giving for Angela.

If anyone deserves a pain- and disease-free life, you and I both know it’s Angela--someone who has brought endless joy, empowerment, and love to so many.

Thank you for considering and, please, pass along the message in whatever format you use!

If you’d like to follow along with updates, Angela’s Caringbridge site can be found here

With gratitude and care,

Lauren & Owen