Tamara Elstner is facing long odds and high medical expenses, in her fight to beat her cancer, now that it has metasticized to her lungs.

Tamara is a wonderful single mother to Miljana, who is in 5th grade at Franklin Fine Arts. I'm saying this for you to understand it is imperative for Miljana that Tamara is given every opportunity that is medically possible to live as long as she can, so that Miljana can continue to have her Mom in her life for as long as possible, and that is why we need to raise money to help them.

Tamara has insurance through the government, and with that has seen an oncologist at Rush University. This oncologist said starting immediately, she should be having chemotherapy every 2 weeks, and if she does that, the maximum life expectancy is 3 years. 3 years does not even get Miljana through middle school, and is just not enough for this family. Tamara and her friends immediately began researching what other options there are, and it immediately became clear that the top hospital for this situation is MD Anderson in Houston, however they do not accept her insurance. She can change her insurance to a plan they do accept, but not until her insurance anniversary date of 7/1. Of course she can't wait until 7/1 to begin treatment, because without treatment that could be too late.

Tamara called and spoke to the hospital there and they said do not start chemotherapy now, they want to look at the exact DNA of her cancer, and see if they can come up with a more specialized, DNA specific, treatment; but to do that she needs to make a first payment of around $4,000, which she has done and put on a credit card. Then, she has to come to Houston where they are going to do a bunch of tests and appointments etc, over the course of several days to come up with a personalized treatment plan that is going to be more advanced, more targeted, and we hope offer a longer life expectancy, than what she is being offered now at Rush. The cost of this out of pocket is going to be up to $40,000, which will be due within the next few weeks. The actual treatments after that will be much, much more.

In addition to owing these new large amounts of money, of course Tamara is not going to be able to work like normal. She will have some lower income, but not the normal amount that is necessary to pay her bills etc.

Once Tamara is able to switch insurance companies in July, she can continue most of her treatment at the MD Anderson in Chicago, but the Houston hospital has to start it, and it has to be paid in advance. Even once the new insurance kicks in there will still be deductibles, and travel costs, and loss of income, over a very extended amount of time. I am explaining all of this, because I want anyone who reads this to understand why I have put such a high number for donations here. This money is desparately needed, and will continue to be needed, for the unforseeable future.

Tamara originally was diagnosed with early stage ampullary carcinoma two years ago. She then underwent the very serious whipple surgery procedure and several rounds of chemotherapy. Since then she has undergone several other smaller surgeries to help with the internal scarring in the area of the orginal surgery, and a CT scan every 3 months, among other things. Unfortunately, the last CT scan she had, showed the arrival of over 20 nodes on her lungs, and the subsequent cancer blood test showed a positive result, letting us know that the cancer was back and now metasticized to her lungs.

She has already used up all of her savings etc on her past medical procedures, and is now desparately in need of our help to help save her life, and preserve the childhood and happiness of Miljana as long as possible. Please, every tiny bit you can give to help, will help, and if you know Tamara at all you know that she is the first person to help anyone else when they need help, so I hope we can all come together and support her now in her time of need.

Her Friend,

Sarah Andrews