Updated: October 2025, here we go again.

Well, the cancer came back and metastasized locally. My options are not ideal and will either affect me for the rest of my life or take my life, I’m trying to avoid both simultaneously.

I have been trying to get surgery scheduled for months now. It took time to find a surgeon that would help me try to achieve clear margins while keeping some quality of life. I established care with them and then suddenly insurance wouldn’t cover anything. My oncologist said I have to be on chemo until surgery so I took chemo pills for a while but had to up it to infusions since the surgery date continues to get pushed back. Well, I was scheduled to start infusions again in September when my insurance refused to approve my treatments. I had to change insurance plans just to get treatments. It may seem simple but that requires hours spent on hold, messages to doctors, tracking down referrals, appeals, changing appointments I waiting months for, missing treatments, not having access to my care team while being instructed to please keep taking the chemo pills and get an appointment with the doctor the insurance sent me to, I call

them and it takes over an hour to speak to someone to make an appointment and then they don’t have appointments until the next month, meanwhile I’m on chemo and having unaddressed side effects.

Simultaneously, I’m still fighting to be free in court. The judge is bias and delays decision making, last time he reprimanded me for not appearing in person during a hearing that I had my lawyer at in person requesting ada accommodations due to my cancer treatments causing extreme chemo brain and excessive diarrhea. Not only did he refuse to enforce his own order, he said I get zero points for appearing remotely but the party in person get a plus one, effectively favoring the abled body. It has been over a month and the judge still has yet to provide a response to my ada requests. This is just the most recent instance that this judge has been unjust. Still, the system is perfectly fine delaying this for years, no money being divided, even child support, 3 years later is still not being paid completely and no one cares to enforce it.

I just can’t believe I had this cancer 5-7 years when I was finally diagnosed. My kids are 5 and 7. I have been having pain and fatigue along with other unexplained symptoms for so long but no one cared, specially my husband at the time. I sent pictures and shared my concerns and often my texts went unanswered, concerns never heard. I finally left when I was being told that I can’t keep flying back home for my doctor’s appointments(among other reasons). I had finally started getting tests ordered to find out what is going on with me when we were forced to move to New York under the condition that I have to have access to frequent trips back to Long Beach. During the last trip back, I shared that there was something was really wrong and I think it’s cancer but no one believed me. My body was SCREAMING at me that something was wrong, I had to file divorce. Soon after, we lost everything when he quit his job as promised after I appeared in court. He knew I had major health concerns but he didn’t care. He threatened to quit his job if I went through with the court appearance, under the threat we would loose everything and that’s exactly what he did, including healthcare.

Since then, the kids and I have relied on government assistance. Meanwhile, in court, nothing is getting done. It’s been years of battling divorce and cancer simultaneously and it’s killing me.

Please help me fight back!

Hi I’m Heather. I was recently diagnosed with stage 3c colorectal cancer, just three years younger than my mom when she passed away from cancer. I watched my mother as she slowly deteriorated and finally found peace when she passed away when I was 16. Now here I am with two amazing children ages 4 & 6. I always feared that I would follow the family traits but figured I would take after my father who has also passed away, I never imagined it would have advanced cancer in my 30s.

I began to notice symptoms that couldn’t be ignored around 3 years ago. At the time

I was married in a very high stress environment. The doctors brushed off the fatigue to be related to the stress and the bleeding to be possible endometriosis. Since then, I filed for divorce which has been quite a challenge and took priority over my health. I had an emergency surgery due to gallstones and right after surgery, our home had to be sold and I had to pack up and move our entire household on my own resulting in a delay of healing. A few months later, I started experiencing more frequent bleeding that continued to increase so I started the process of getting testing done and finally after a colonoscopy, the doctor told me they found a large lesion and estimate that I have had it for about 7 years due to its size.

Since diagnosis, I have faced so many challenges receiving the care I need to fight this. Our medical system for underserved communities has some major problems. The tumor was discovered in May and in July, I have still yet to receive any treatments or care to navigate the daily symptoms. I am constantly bleeding, requiring constant access to the restroom. This bleeding is accompanied by pain and fatigue. In addition to this, the cancer has progressed to the point that I am losing weight and experiencing muscle loss which has made daily tasks challenging. I am hoping to get into an advanced treatment called proton therapy which is said to provide higher doses of radiation to the tumor while reducing the side effects. With traditional radiation at my age, there is a high risk of infertility, menopause and cancer development in the reproductive system so this newer treatment would help to lessen the effects of radiation to the surrounding organs. Medi-Cal likely will not pay for this treatment but I believe it can increase my chances of survival and would like to find a way to make it happen.I am unable to work due to these symptoms which is posing to be a challenge as a single mom with no financial support from the father.

My treatment will be “the most intense treatment possible.” Starting with a combination of radiation and chemo for 6 weeks 5 days a week followed by a short break and then chemo for 6 months. The chemo will be every other week for 6 hours in office and a pump that is sent home for 48 hours. After these treatments, they will scan again to see if I am a candidate for

surgery but at this time, it is inoperable. The scans show it is effecting the sigmoid rectal area, had invaded the nearby vessels, tissues, lympnodes, bladder, stomach and large intestines.

I anticipate needing to pay for everything from rent to care to help with daily tasks for myself and helping with my children.