Help Tracy See!

Hey everyone! Cole here, Tracy's son.

This is gonna be a reasonably long post so tl;dr: Due to her ongoing health issues and problems caused by high dose steroids, she is almost blind and insurance only covers some of the specific lenses she needs to not only fix the cataracts but also to continue her abilities as an artist as the basic ones affect her color vision and middle vision too. As a result, we are asking for your help to get her the lenses she needs in order to not be blind and to continue to have a reasonably decent quality of life, however long that may be. If you cannot contribute, please at least consider sharing this fundraiser in an effort to have this funded as soon as possible, as we, unfortunately, don't have a terribly long time to get this done. If you would prefer to donate via another medium such as cash-app, or Paypal, please message Tracy or myself, and we will give you the appropriate details. Thanks everyone!

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It has been nearly three years this coming January since my mother was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive type of Breast Cancer: Triple Positive Invasive Pleomorphic Lobular Carcinoma. This diagnosis, as it does with literally everyone that receives it, derailed so much that was finally going well for her: a job she liked, being able to go out and dance when she felt like it, and her apparent good health. Being diagnosed with cancer sucks.

Over the course of the next year, she would undergo expensive treatments, lose her hair (but not before shaving it off herself, like a boss), and endure the oftentimes debilitating side-effects of the drugs that would come to put her cancer into a tenuous, but still very much real, remission. We breathed a minor sigh of relief. Most of you did that with us as well, and it has meant more than you could know. Thank you so much!

In July of 2020, my mom and I decided that we needed to take a minor vacation. So, we trekked off to St. Augustine, FL for a few days and explored all that America's Oldest City has to offer. It was pretty awesome to visit the forts and to also have the ability to visit The Fountain of Youth (even with its nasty actual "Fountain of Youth" water). We also took a trip up to the top of an old lighthouse in the area, determined to see the port city from an aerial perspective.

On the way up, however, my mom started to notice that she was feeling a bit off, and once she reached the top of the Lighthouse, she was all of a sudden extremely dizzy, which had never been an issue before when climbing even several thousand feet above the sea-level that she was most accustomed to. Thinking nothing of it, she took a lap around the observation deck and then left me up there by myself while she found a seat inside of the lighthouse. After that experience, we decided to walk back to the hotel, where she began to feel faint and needed the rest of the day to recompose herself. This was not unusual during active treatment, but she was no longer on said treatment, and so it was a bit strange.

Nevertheless, we finished our trip and I was able to drive her back to Orlando, and nothing was odd for a couple of days. But as the days went by, mom noticed that she had a growing, giant, blank spot in the middle of her field of vision, called a scotoma, that had started small but was rapidly becoming more apparent by the day. At first, she wasn't sure what it was, but over the next few days, she eventually realized that it was not going away and consulted her Oncologist, Dr. Imam.

"Go to the hospital right away!" was the advice.

The next days were quite busy--they found five masses in her brain and, while our family did not immediately know what they were, it turns out the ER doc did know but failed to tell my mother until her neurosurgeon broke the news to her in the hospice ward full of COVID-19 patients at 2 am. She was started on multiple courses of high-dose steroids--dexamethasone--to attempt a reduction in the amount of edema and associated swelling which was causing her symptoms. I remember quite clearly the trepidation of not knowing exactly what was gonna happen, just that the cancer had recurred. It was surreal.

Well, this was unfortunate. Not least because that diagnosis is not exactly one that is typically survivable, even in the year before her diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer. Still, Dr. Imam was determined to ensure that this would not be the last we heard from Tracy, my mother. She continued to be treated with Dexamethasone at 12 mg/day at the insistence of her neurosurgeon (the normal dose is between 2-3 mg/day and only for approximately three weeks at a time), in addition to more powerful chemotherapy until this past Summer of 2021; eventually being able to have SRS radiation and the occipital tumor--the largest one--removed so that they could do their best to contain it and ensure that she would not go blind due to the tumor.

However, even though the cancer treatment was (and still is--knock on wood--) successful to date, after a double mastectomy and now three reconstructions, one thing continues to plague my mom: those steroids.

Because she was put on an extremely high dosage of steroids for three months (Dexamethasone at 12mg/day, as previously mentioned), followed up by the next highest type of steroid, prednisone at 40 mg/day for six months thereafter, her body stopped making cortisol, which is sorta important if you like to be able to live as well as regulate your hormones and bodily functions effectively. Additionally, the steroids, which should have been weaned down WAYYYYY faster than they were, damaged her hips, knees, and other joints alongside giving her cataracts in the process--which is slowly making her go blind day by day.

Steroids are rough.

So, she developed secondary Adrenocortical deficiency, or SAI, which means she had to (and still has to) anticipate when her body needs more of the steroid chemicals the rest of our bodies naturally make at sun-up, sundown, and when scared or surprised. Additionally, the extreme amount of steroids as prescribed by her docs accelerated joint and eye degradation to the point that she has been, at several points, bedridden, and now all but completely blind.

So, this is where I am gonna ask for your help in any way you can give it. My mother needs cataract surgery. The steroids have created the cataracts that she is now living with, and therefore are a clear and present danger to her sight and thus quality of life. The problem is that the lenses she needs are approximately $2700 PER EYE after the little insurance does cover. This is a major source of worry for us as a result, and because one of the major things my mom has been able to do to keep herself busy and distracted during not only her cancer treatment, but also the pandemic, is to create: whether that means jewelry, soap making, painting, or any other artistic hobby that brings her joy, the fact that we cannot afford these lenses and insurance won't cover them is rapidly becoming a threat to her continued ability to create and is therefore causing major distress.

As previously mentioned, insurance is, fortunately, a thing she finally has, and while the surgery itself will be covered, the lenses she needs will have a significant, currently impossible to pay, out-of-pocket expense. These lenses are called Implantable Trifocal Lenses or ITL's. These lenses remove the need for glasses and contacts post-operatively, in addition to being able to correct the underlying cataract itself, halos, and better color differentiation. These can correct her existing vision issues, while also repairing a problem that is becoming direr by the day. I find it to be absolutely insane that these lenses are not covered under insurance for a legitimate medical need, such as my mom's, but nevertheless, they aren't.

Additionally, while there are lenses that are slightly cheaper, they would not be adequate for my mother. They would continue her existing problems of halos and poor color differentiation, as well as ensure that she has to continue to spend money on glasses and contacts, which ultimately will exceed the cost of this procedure in the first place while providing worse visual acuity than the trifocal lenses she is trying to get. Being able to read, drive, do art, see her grandson, kids, and friends and family alongside anything else you can/need to do with vision will be significantly impacted if she cannot get the trifocal lenses due to the out-of pocket, upfront cost.

So, we are asking for your help to be able to get her the proper lenses that she needs in order to live with any meaningful quality of life, however long that may be. It was quite the sticker shock, and I haven't done a fundraiser for a minute, so I figured it wouldn't hurt. All of her friends are amazing for all you have done, and with every day, we get closer to being healthier and happier, and for longer. So, here's hoping this will be one of the last things we should need a large amount of upfront funding for. I appreciate you all, and, once again, if you are unable to contribute monetarily, please at least consider sharing this anywhere you think it will be helpful. It is scary to lose your vision, and I am hopeful that we can prevent this from happening with your support.

Once again, thank you so much for sticking with us through everything and for all the help y'all have been--it's literally meant everything to my mom and our family. If you would prefer to donate via another method, please contact Tracy or myself directly. Thank you!

--Cole.

Tracy's son.