This GoFundMe was created to help my mom, Kathy, as she battles the most challenging chapter of her life. For those who are unaware, keep reading for an overview of her current situation.

My mom lost her job of 25 years during the COVID pandemic which ultimately led to her needing to reevaluate finances and move to somewhere new. This is how she and her pets landed in an adorable little community in Lake Elsinore in June 2022. Her goal was always to get settled in and then hit the pavement getting back to work. However, things haven't quite worked out that way. Less than a month after moving, my mom went to the doctor to get her relentless cough checked out. It was then that she received the terrifying news that she had cancer. During this time, I was pregnant and mere weeks away from labor, and I struggled to be with her as I was not allowed to venture too far from my doctor.

I went into the hospital on July 10th with high blood pressure and called my mom around 1am to let her know I was being admitted and that it was baby time. My mom let me know that she, too, was being admitted to a hospital in another city at the same time. Two days, many tests, and several FaceTime calls later, I left the hospital with a baby boy and my mom left with a diagnosis:

Stage 4 Renal Cell Carcinoma with metastases to lungs and lymph nodes. My mom's left kidney is still functioning but it is covered in tumors. The tumors have spread to the lymph nodes and to both her lungs. Most notably, she has two large tumors that are encasing her bronchial tubes and slowly closing off her airway. The bigger they grow the tighter her airway gets and the less air she can breathe.

Over the month and a half post-diagnosis, she was hospitalized 4 times in 45 days for breathing-related difficulties. Each time she was also diagnosed and treated with antibiotics for double pneumonia and excessive swelling that was not resolving.

In a scary turn of events, my mom was released from Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach on the afternoon of September 7th. I was woken up 12 hours later, the morning of the 8th, to my name being yelled. I jumped out of bed to see my mom panicking, struggling to breathe, cold, clammy, sweaty, and begging me to call 911. Within minutes (THANK YOU, Riverside FD), the fire department arrived and began helping her. She was loaded up in an ambulance and taken to yet another hospital for stay #5. This time, however, she was told that she had had a heart attack and was experiencing congestive heart failure. An angiogram on Monday 9/12 confirmed that the pneumonia in the lungs was not from a virus or a bacteria, but from the backup of blood and fluid from her heart. Her care team currently agrees that the only way to fix this is to treat her cancer as quickly as possible.

After a series of way too many speed bumps and setbacks, from medication interactions to insurance limitations, my mom is finally ready to receive her first double immuno-therapy infusion. The infusion is scheduled for Monday, September 19th with an excellent oncologist from the City of Hope Cancer Center. Our only concern at this point is keeping her stable enough (and breathing) to make it until the infusion.

My mom's most significant concern right now is simply to live as long as possible to take care of her pets and watch her grandkids grow up for as long as she can.

Unable to work, my mom is going to need financial help in the coming months with things like insurance premiums, mortgage payments, house cleaning services, groceries, pet assistance, bills, gas to get to and from cancer treatment, etc. I am still on materity leave, but I will have to return to work soon. And with her condition being so sensitive and with her needing round-the-clock breathing treatments and medications, I can already anticipate needing to hire outside support.

Thank you so much for reading, for your support of my mom, and for considering helping. It really means the world. I will continue to update here for everyone that wants to follow along.