Two months ago to the day, a reality that we knew was eventually to be expected started to become that much more real for our family. A clinical trial that Kunal was supposed to start in October had been canceled for her at the last minute because her tumor growth suddenly excluded her from the trial. And so that fateful day, her oncologists told us that instead of expecting her to be with us for a few long years, we could probably only plan for Kunal to be around for “a few long months.” And that was exactly two months ago.

Since then Kunal has started a new chemo and immunotherapy treatment to try to slow the tumor’s growth but she had an allergic reaction to it at the first infusion and then days later got diagnosed with shingles and was hospitalized for a week because of that. She’s still recovering (rather painfully) from the shingles, had to pause treatment during that time, and is planning to start treatment again this week.

Our family has been sitting with the news of the prognosis the best we can. We haven’t had too much time and space to given that Kunal is still healing and that Clandon (our three year old) got chicken pox from Kunal’s shingles despite being vaccinated so we’ve been spending most of our time putting out immediate fires. We did get a chance to tell Antonio (our nine year old) so he can emotionally prepare for what’s to come.

And that’s where we need your help. Our whole family needs time and space to emotionally prepare and we can’t do that if we’re stressing about existing under the realities of capitalism. Through all this Kunal has not been able to work and I’ve had limited capacity to work as I’m now the primary caretaker in our home to both, children and Kunal. So though we’re covered through December, we need your help making sure our bills are still covered and our kids have what they need for the first few months of the 2026 while I look for a more steady job (which will be a difficult thing to focus on given Kunal’s prognosis.)

In the meantime, we’re going to try to make the best of it as we possibly can as a family. We just celebrated Kunal’s 36th birthday four days ago which included a “stop and smell the roses” party last weekend where we got to give Kunal her flowers now while she’s still with us.

With more holidays upon us, we’re going to focus on making as many family memories as possible. Hopefully it won’t be the last for our family in its current dynamic as Kunal is going to continue fighting cancer until she can’t, but in case it is, we’ll be prepared.