I never thought I would be here, but I am very reluctantly asking for some financial assistance today. My story involves a divorce, two recessions, taking care of and elderly parent with dementia, a worldwide pandemic -- and cancer. So this is how I got here. When I graduated from college in 2009, I did so with a marriage that had fallen apart, into a deep recession, and having extremely unwisely taken out a slew of student loans. (When I returned to college in 2006, the student loans weren't necessary, but the mortgage crisis would devastate my ex-husband's business. The plan had been to graduate, get a good job, sell my apartment.) When I was unable to find a job in the 2009 economy, I started a dog-walking business ("A Dog Walk in the Park") and picked up my old self-employment as a legal transcriptionist, which I could do remotely. Together this worked, and I was able to get a loan modification on my apartment and cobble together a good living while going through a contentious divorce, which was finally finalized in 2016, the same year I came out of bankruptcy. I had my small apartment, with a large mortgage, and no alimony. The plan was to resume the career search when the economy improved, but I had to start caring for my then-85 year old mother in 2012, who like me had also gotten divorced in her 50s after a long marriage. I went down to Maryland to sell her home and brought her to live with me in my apartment in New York. I was only able to do that through my self-employment, but as caring for her became more and more time-consuming, the option of finding a more substantive job with benefits and increasing pay (transcription pay has stayed largely the same for well over 20 years, and there are no benefits) became more and more unrealistic, and the time I had to spend caring for her became greater and greater as her dementia progressed. By 2016 she could not be left alone for even a short time, needed assistance with all activities of daily living, and by 2018 was very confused as to who I was. Mom passed away at the end of 2019 at the age of 92. So 2020 loomed with a determination to focus in again on raising my income, by either relaunching Dog Walk in the Park while taking on more transcription work, or jumping back into the career search. There was not much left of her estate. But we all know what happened. By March, the opportunities for dog walking were gone, and the transcription work dropped dramatically. And like everyone effectively in a gig economy, I fell through the cracks of assistance. I wasn't UNemployed. My income was just greatly reduced, and even further reduced from where I had planned to raise it to. But I wasn't able to collect any kind of unemployment and had to draw from limited savings instead. Selling the apartment wasn't really an option either in the middle of a pandemic, and those student loans made a deep cut into what equity there would be. I simply needed to build a good income, and was ready to do so. But by May, something much more dramatic was lurking when I started having health issues. In July I had a hysterectomy, and it was at that point they discovered that I had a uterine leiomyosarcoma. A couple of weeks later, a CT scan showed that it had already metastasized to my lungs. In September, both the transcription work and the dogwalking had greatly recovered. But dogwalking was out because I was too compromised healthwise to be going into other people's houses. I starting doing as much transcription work as I could, but September is also when I started my chemotherapy. In September and October, I was hospitalized a total of three times. By the end of October, it was discovered that my first course of chemotherapy wasn't working. So in November, I started another. Three months of that chemo didn't do the trick either. The lesions in my lungs doubled. So I'm now on the third course of chemo, and I'm on track to be in a clinical trial for a drug to be used in conjunction with the new chemo. In the meantime, I'm back in the hospital today dealing with the effects of the new chemo on my body, and my ability to sustain working through all this has greatly diminished. I had hoped to hold off on receiving Social Security until age 70, but that was no longer a good bet, so I started getting it at age 66, in January. I receive $1,100 a month, and without working, that is the total of my income. Meanwhile, I'm very grateful that I got on Medicare before all this happened, but even with a supplement, it still doesn't cover everything. I've still had several thousands of dollars in medical bills. So that's where I'm at right now, weathering this seemingly perfect storm of financial hits, and why in the last year I've had to burn through limited savings. I've kept up working as best a I can, but I need to stop, so I can really use some help. Please spread as widely as possible. Thank you so much.

Jill Muller

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Help Mary Ellen Fight Cancer

platform

Platform is iOS

Android

Adyen Google Pay Development Audience

$opt_dummy_attribute

English only

Deprecate Stripe Legacy

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Adyen V6 Bene Transfer & MyMoney Campaign Organizers - test01

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OneTrust next-app audience

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NextDoor Share Option Users

Fundraisers with Reactions feature capability

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fund country is US and user language is English

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GoFundMe Employees

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Mark Rieth IP Address

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desktop

Android v12.11.0 and above

Platform is Android

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checkoutType

Payment method type group to be vaulted on success

admin pr kit prod

EUR Donation Upsell

Share Text generation Skip Fundraiser

(prod) new funds eligible for amp12 (UGC gallery)

fintrac_cad_idv_form_v2 audience

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p2p legacy startfundraising page

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charityId

UKCharities

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route.pathname community

US Donation Upsell audience 

Auto Thanks Feature Audience

Supporter Comments Eligible Funds

International Only

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braze fundraiser group 

Payment Identity Transfers ATO Risk Check (Targeted) - Production

Fundraiser Saved Payment Method Rate Limit Bypass (Production)

leaderboard-partner-id-audience-givepanel

Version 9.2.1 and above

AUD Donation Upsell audience

fundraiserCountryCode is US/EN

Active Fundraiser - Smart Default Cadence

DAF Internal

Vault on success card payment method

Platform is iOS v11.0.0 and above

Desktop users

Person ids

United States (US) users

allow yuno fundraisers for test

Mexico country code

Posters INTL

NPO Profile Opted-In

iOS at or above 12.4.0

non-US recurring donors

Canada Campaign Owner Group

Fundraiser Without Meta Link

Scheduler payment tester gorup

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Charities allow to be claimed unclaimed (PRD)

Canada (CA) users

currencyCode

UC Tipping v20250115 International

pymk_production_xplr_fe_team

Android at or above 12.2.0

Profile photo entry point audience

smart goals (fundraiser/manage) on test01

Activity Tracking v1 Beta Testing

writePath

Stream Notification

start gfm intl allowed locales

Platform is iOS v11.2.0 and above

prod_ach_audience

AI Chatbot Audience

amp13 only new funds (prod) (anyword auto)

UC Flow Enabled (Prod)

Payment Identity Beneficiary Verification - Production

shared notification bell audience

Custom users

ach frontend audience

Android v11.0.0 and above

Users Receiving Payments Paused Notifications

smart goals test01

Manage Coach - US English Organizers Only + new funds only

Team EGG - IP Address list

Fundraiser Without Instagram Deep Link

Native 11.4.0 and above

UC Tipping v20250107

Users Receiving Braze KYC Validation Failed

Native 11.3.0 and above

Influencer - Prod

US fundraisers and US users

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Native 11.4.0 and higher

New funds eligible - Video Sharing (PROD)

GB Donation Upsell audience 

Auto Thanks V3 Rollout Audience

Thank you V3 testing whitelist

isRecurringFriendly

Is Recurring Friendly

Excluded funds - Video Sharing

Logged In Users

CH Donation Upsell audience

Android v10.6.0 and above

userCurrencyCode

Localized Currency

v11.5.0 and above

testAudience

pathname

Survicate

appVersion is at or above 12.8.0

Non-charity fund

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challenge-fundraisers

Payment Identity Launch Verification - Production

New funds eligible - Posters v2

CAD Donation Upsell Audience

Braze Email Tester

NPO Profile Opted-Out

iOS App Version

hasKnownDonors

PYMK has donors

iOS v12.3.0 and above

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