Help Support Melissa & Family during Orlando's Cancer Battle

Happily ever after was never meant to end this soon.

My name is Melissa & in October 2023, my husband Orlando…my best friend, my life partner & the love of my life was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive brain cancer called Glioblastoma Multiforme Wild Type following brain surgery. They gave him a shocking prognosis of 12-18 months to live, set up a treatment plan to try to stabilize him for as long as possible, then sent us on our way with the words of ‘hope for the best but expect the worst…enjoy him while you can.’ Those words brought me to my knees.

My brave, amazing, force of a man fought this disease so incredibly well for as long as he humanly could, all the while worrying more about the family he was leaving behind than his own feelings. I’ve never seen someone be so caring about others during such a tremendously difficult time. He’s truly my hero & I couldn’t be more blessed than to be his wife.

Unfortunately, this horrible disease began to progress early fall of this year & has quickly taken him from being the man who people could barely believe has terminal brain cancer to bedridden in the care of home hospice. During this time, I’ve done my best to care for him, our children & our pets in every way I could but now, even my superwoman efforts are falling flat & seeing a light anywhere at the end of this dark tunnel feels impossible.

At this point, my husband’s condition is so significant that as his primary caretaker, my days & nights are right there by his side as he’s in a hospital bed in our living room. This medical journey has been so consuming that I’ve exhausted all paid leave with my employer at this point & am living on extensive unpaid FMLA. Yet medical expenses, daily living expenses & the expense that when he is no longer with us, we will need to move to a smaller, more affordable home.

This past year I’ve learned the hard way that even though we have decent medical insurance, there is an enormous amount of expenses not covered by ‘good insurance.’ I’ve learned that everything that can break & go wrong will, including my brand new glasses falling out of my purse & getting run over in the street…our only vehicle needing so much work to the point we needed to replace it…pipes flooding the basement & destroying all of our sentimental holiday things we had stored there. It’s just been beyond crushing. And I’ve done my best to keep our spirits up, to make ends meet, to try to get help & aid wherever possible but we’ve really hit the end of the rope & our most desperate time.

We just need to keep our heads above water right now & be there for the husband & father who’s always been there for us & sacrificed so much.

We need to try to keep him okay. And I need to be able to keep us afloat when the worst of the worst happens so on top of grief, we don’t have to contend with not being able to make a phone call or not having a meal in the house.

Any little bit would help right now. Even donations of food, gift cards, household items would all mean the world to us. We appreciate anyone who keeps us in their heart, truly.