UPDATE: Hi, Friends. I need your help now more than ever. After a few months of random vomiting it was determined brain tumors were the culprit, and they also found a hemorrhage in my right ventricle. It required immediate craniotomy, rendering me unable to drive anymore. I owe more on my car than it’s worth. I also have thirteen tumors all along my spine requiring low dose morphine around the clock, sometimes fast-acting for breakthrough pain. It’s agonizing pain. 

I also require an oxygen concentrator to breathe, and needed to buy out of pocket a portable one so I can leave the house easily. I can’t lift the bulky green metal containers anymore and the portable concentrator cost me $25000. 

Lastly, due to my extreme health issues my children’s father and I decided it was best our children live with him full time. This will also allow them to see their Mom on the good days and allow me to focus on my health. I am in the fight of my life. I just started a new chemo yesterday and it needs to work and work fast. I also start brain radiation in a week or two and have had radiation to my chest lymph nodes and my spinal tumors. The radiation also wipes me out. 

I am also downsizing to a rented room or studio near my kids so I have as little house to manage as possible as well as see my babies as often as possible. Moving and breaking my lease/security deposits is another added expense and in the meantime I’m paying for a three bedroom. My heart is broken and I just want to recover from my craniotomy, have my cancer meds work, settle into my new place and try to have some semblance of a life. But I need your help. Please. I just want to focus on healing and getting as well as I can for as long as I can so I can give that time to my babies. I am not ready to die yet. Thank you. 

Hello!

My name is Danielle, and my three children, Jamison (10), Penelope (8), and Sawyer (4) and I live in Boulder, Colorado. I have been living with stage IV triple negative metastatic breast cancer for two years. While treatable, it is, unfortunately an incurable disease with an average life expectancy for someone like me being three-five years. Triple negative is the worst subtype of breast cancer to have as it usually requires indefinite IV chemotherapy and has the poorest prognosis. This is because of its aggressiveness, and how its harsh treatments can eventually cause other organs to prematurely fail. 

At present, the breast cancer has metastasized into a lime-sized tumor in my left lung, several lymph nodes in my chest wall and abdomen, one of which crushed my airway, and four areas in my brain. I also have developed pulmonary embolism in my right lung, and tachycardia with fluid around my heart. 

Over the past few months, I have had over twenty chemotherapy infusions, bronchoscopy and biopsy to my lung, plus cancer lasered out of the inside of my airway, radiosurgery to my brain, and several hospitalizations for sepsis, pneumonia, and neutropenia. As a result, I have not been able to work my freelance job. Since disability and child support doesn't pay enough to cover my bills without freelance work, this has caused me serious financial stress, in addition to the stress of my health.

All the while, the chemotherapies have failed back to back as I have watched in horror one scan after the next yield more and more cancer progression. Just recently in May 2021, a brain MRI showed a new cancerous mass between my skull and brain, and another imbedded in my brain, both of which will be treated soon with a Gamma Knife radiation procedure.

As a result of the immense progression, I am seeking a second opinion with a specialist in complex triple negative cases at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. I was initially told that CO Medicaid was one of the many out-of-state Medicaids they accept, but now learned that was a mistake and they will let me know the out-of-pocket cost for the consult. My hope is to get on to a clinical trial, which is a further time commitment, but possibly the best chance I have of staying alive for as long as possible. After my current chemotherapy fails, I am down to one standard of care option left, and then clinical trials are my only hope.  The unfortunate thing is, many clinical trials exclude patients like myself with brain metastases, so my options may be even more limited. I have already been on five IV chemo in two years, plus an immunotherapy. It is my greatest hope this consult will yield new options for me!

All of the treatments and constant trips to the hospital (one hour each way) are exhausting me further, and I use a lot of complimentary medicine and treatment to keep my body feeling good as often as possible. This includes vitamins, supplements, acupuncture, reflexology, massage, and other things that add up fast when you can't work as much as you used to. But they help with my nausea, fatigue, insomnia, and appetite. So it's worth it to have a better quality of life and keep going. Treatment will never end for me unless I enter hospice, so it is important that I keep upmy stamina for as long as possible. A few days ago was my 56th chemotherapy infusion, with no end in sight.

Lastly, my recent hospitalizations and cancer progression have solidified for me that I really need to arrange my funeral plans, so I know it's taken care of and can spend my final time earthside enjoying my loved ones. I don't have a spouse or parents who will help in paying for these arrangements, so it's down to me to do it all and it's hard with a limited income and finite amount of time to earn money as a sick person. I have decided I want a water cremation and plot at a memorial garden here in Colorado where I will be planted into a tree and my children can come and visit me. It might sound strange, but I think that having this taken care of and knowing where my final resting place is will really ease my anxiety about dying young and give me enormous peace whenever the time comes to transition. 

Any funds received via GFM will cover:
Outstanding medical bills, travel expenses to cover costs of friends and family helping me as I recover from surgery.
Help with household bills usually supplemented by my freelance work
Complimentary medicine/treatment (Vitamins, supplements, acupuncture, etc...)
Transportation since I cannot drive myself anymore or get a ride (Intelleride makes you wait on a bench for 1-2 hours)
Household help (cleaning services, meals)
Final expenses (Memorial Garden plot, tree, etc...; Medicaid will cover some, but out of pocket estimate is $4-7k).


Thank you so much for the gift of your time-the most precious thing in the world! If you can help in any way, even sharing with your own loved ones, it would mean the world to me. Thank you for helping me and my little family so I can be here for as long as possible with them!! I cannot do this without you, really and truly. Living with this disease is hard enough, especially without a caregiver. I would love nothing more than to spend my final time Earthside, however long that may be for (hopefully quite a long while still!), with as little stress and struggle as possible. I am trying to squeeze in decades of living and experiences into a few years with a body in decline, and any help to achieve that is most appreciated. 

To follow my life living with metastatic breast cancer, please visit #WigsAndThingsBlog on Instagram or www.wigsandthings.org 

To learn more about metastatic breast cancer, the only kind that kills over 42, 000 people a year annually around the world, please visit www.metavivor.org