Help Pia Pay Her Medical Expenses

Following is the story of Pia Navales. A good friend, and single mom of two from the San Francisco Bay Area. She developed breast cancer two years ago and has been fighting hard since then. Recently she caught severe COVID and pneumonia, which further destabilized her already compromised immune system due to her breast cancer diagnosis. I have no doubt she will recuperate fully as she is receiving excellent medical care at the UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco.

Some of you might not know there is no National Healthcare System in the USA. She has been unable to work to pay her bills for two years and now has accumulated considerable medical debt. In some cases, people are sued, end up losing everything they have, and are thrown out on the street. Your donations will help stabilize Pia’s substantial ever growing medical expenses, as well as her living expenses, as she continues the need to undergo breast cancer treatments for the next several years.

If you are in a position at all to help Pia, please contribute with a donation here. Any amount and every amount helps. It would also be helpful to share this GoFundMe page for her on your social media pages, with your friends & families, coworkers, etc. Let’s all help Pia as much as we can as she so desperately needs all the funding she can get. Please and thank you.

For more information on Pia's breast cancer diagnosis, here's an article published by UCSF for your reference.

PIA TELLS HER STORY - PLEASE READ ON:

Update from my hospital bed at UCSF Mission Bay:

Hi everyone, To preface, being that I’ve proudly been financially supporting myself ever since I’ve been on my own at age 17 y/o (with the exception of when I was with my ex-husband for 15 years), this SOS post herein is very difficult and for me to share with you all. But here I am.

Nevertheless, I’ve reached a critical and dire situation where I now need to ask you all for more than just positive vibes & hugs.

My never-ending breast cancer diagnosis treatment plan and all that it entails has absolutely ruined me financially. Full stop.

Since being diagnosed, this brave & fearless single mama of 2 beautiful kids has singlehandedly been paying for all of our living expenses all by myself thus far. This includes rent, utilities, car insurance, monthly cell phone bill, groceries, and now my new gym membership so I can get much needed doctor-ordered exercise to help me with the myriad of physical side effects from my recovery treatments & medications. Plus any and all necessary medical needs along with whatever else the kids need. I’ve sustained my kids & myself all via my life savings.

For transparency’s sake, I've been unable to work this whole time ever since my diagnosis in December 2021. Because doing everything that I possibly can to stay alive has been an all-consuming effort, which has 100% turned into its own full-time job in and of itself. Full stop.

Managing the various needs of what my diagnosis requires has albeit taken a huge toll on my mental, emotional, and physical health because it's all beyond so stressful seeing my life savings dwindle down to nothing. And now my one & only car, a 21 y/o Honda CR-V (which has been our family car all the way since Baby Sofia was driven home from the hospital in it after she was born) is in dire need of multiple repairs, of which exceeds the value of the car's Blue Book value. My mechanic said that I'm better off just getting rid of it, then get another car, but that's obviously impossible for me to do so right now.

In all honesty, just to let you all know where I'm at financially, all my life savings that I carefully cultivated and saved up for the kids & myself is completely gone. GONE. This is because ever since I was diagnosed in December 2021, I haven't been able to work because of all the breast cancer-related medical procedures I’ve had to endure: 2 major surgeries last year, the first one in February 2022, and then a second one in October 2022; plus other multiple minor surgeries; then 25 rounds of daily radiation therapy for five straight weeks; weekly physical therapy appointments; plus all the other countless breast cancer treatment-related medical appointments I've needed to go to per my diagnoses; and then there’s the overall slow and arduous recovery process which includes being in 24/7 chronic level 7+ pain in my joints due to the hormone blocker medication, Letrazole, that I take every day to keep my breast cancer from recurring.

*There isn't a time at any given moment during the day that goes by when I'm not in some sort of pain.*

I am constantly in pain, y’all. All. The. Time.

Note: What's really messed up is that although the Letrazole's job is to help keep my breast cancer from recurring, the extremely unfortunate side effect of it is that it's unequivocally indeed the root of my 24/7 joint pain. Like I said, it's pretty messed up. Period.

Having said all of the above, *anything* you all are able to donate financially to help sustain & stabilize my physical, mental & emotional well-being in an effort to help support me in my recovery process helps.

As always, thank you so much for your support, understanding, consideration, and love. It means the absolute world to me. ✨

♥️ P