Summary:

Over the course of the last few months my Mom has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of Endometrial cancer. Although her prognosis is pretty good, a huge portion of her treatment to make her cancer-free is not covered by her insurance.

Please consider donating to help offset the cost of her procedures, and treatment.

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Background:

This is my Mom.

Her name is Ann, but almost everyone calls her something else as a term of endearment. She goes by Momma A, Auntie Mom, Mrs. A, Tugboat Annie, and Annette (ok that last one is mostly used by her kids when she's in trouble though- mostly for trying to do too much in her current state).

Someday I hope that I can be just a fraction of the incredible human being she is, and inspire people to do what they can to make the world a better place.

Locally, Mom has been a behind-the-scenes contributor to various groups and charities-- particularly ones that involve baked goods.

She loves to bake and cook, and oftentimes tries recipes before knowing who is going to eat the mountains of her experiments. It is not uncommon for her to load up her car with tables full of goodies to send to a library fundraiser, something for the Lion's Club, or just pop into benefit for a stranger, or make a visit to a food pantry.

She also sneaks snacks to the dogs she fosters through 716 Paws.

At night, when she isn't baking, she rolls yarn into smaller balls to be easier to knit or crochet into warm winter gear for underprivileged kids across WNY.

After working a shift in the cafeteria at the school we both work at, she oftentimes comes to my classroom to read to students or just assist until the end of the day.

She might pop out to find a cookie or brownie for a co-worker having a bad day before coming back to the room to work on learning letters with a five-year-old.

Her coworkers, friends, acquaintances, people she has met through appointments and her baking-- all agree that she is, quite frankly, an exquisite gem of a human being.

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Medical Events to Date:

In September Mom started bleeding-- not something a post-menopausal woman normally deals with.

She went to a Gastroenterologist, her own OBGYN, and a Urologist to find the source of her bleeding.

The day before Thanksgiving the urologist did a cystoscopy to get a better look through imaging and told us that he had never seen something like this before--it looked like the insides of her bladder had been shredded, and there was a bump on one side.

He put her on some antibiotics, told her to work on her hydration, and set a date for a biopsy. He also recommended that she get a total hysterectomy because there was a possibility that the weight of her post-menopausal organs were weighing on the bladder and causing the bleeding.

A week later she had an appointment with a specialist OBGYN. She took tissue biopsies and sent them to the lab. They came back immediately as positive for endometrial cancer cells. This Dr referred my Mom to an oncologist specialist OBGYN's office. The earliest appointment was New Year's Eve.

The day after Christmas, Mom had her first big procedure at Buffalo General. The Urology team explored and took biopsies of her bladder. They removed a sizable jagged bladder stone and sent it to pathology for biopsy just in case. However, the team was fairly certain it was just a stone that was embedded in the lining of her bladder, and that her dehydration combined with the weight of her uterus was causing a portion of the bleeding issues.

New Year's Eve brought us to her appointment with Dr. Ackers at Lakeshore Cancer Care. There we were informed that Mom has the more aggressive, and harder to treat form of Endometrial Cancer. The next step was a full hysterectomy.

We were also informed that with Mom's side of her family's cancer history, there was a potentiality that her Endometrial cancer has bypassed a tumor stage and could go straight to the blood as Leukemia.

We began bracing ourselves for stage 1-2 or the potentiality of an end-stage prognosis.

Also added to the stress was the fact that Dr. Ackers was booked for surgeries straight through till the end of May.

Fortuitously, at the same moment they were looking to get her scheduled with another surgeon in the practice, an opening for Dr. Ackers appeared for January 24th.

The following was a mad dash race to get all of her pre-op appointments and paperwork submitted for her big surgery.

The surgery itself was a success and the immediate recovery period went smoothly.

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The Good News:

At her surgical post-op appointments, the team informed us that the cancer was aggressively invading her reproductive tissue, and that it had only started to travel. This leaves her with a stage 2 cancer diagnosis.

The next steps were to set her up for a Port procedure, and get prior authorization for her treatment-- which consist of 6 chemo treatments spaced 21 days apart. After all of this, Mom would be tentatively cancer-free.

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The Bad News:

Over the last few days we have received news that a huge chunk of her treatment is not covered by her health insurance. Different support groups are trying to offset the cost, but it still leaves us with a potential 5-10k gap of coverage not including copays for her past procedures, future treatments, medications, and scans.

Currently Mom is unable to work due to her surgeries and the nature of her job which requires lifting and a lot of time on her feet.

My sister and I are trying to cover the costs of her medications and procedures so far-- but with her long-term treatment and the sheer amount due, it is not sustainable for us.

We are asking the community to help us provide the treatment Mom needs to continue to live her life cancer-free.

Please consider donating, and sharing-- everything helps!

With love and appreciation,

-The Aeschbacher Girls