Dear Family and Friends

We are trying to raise money for Meena; as you'll know, Meena was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer in September of 2020. Since then, she has been on quite a journey of healing through Eastern and Western Medicine and many other holistic approaches - ultimately to reduce her cancer and in the interim to improve her quality of life and mental and physical health. Each treatment has brought it's unique challenges for which she has had to pivot with appropriate medication, side effects and support.

At present Meena has been admitted to Swedish Seattle Oncology since Thursday night, 11th August, the day after her birthday, they have started a 24 hour chemo drip. The cancer has spread in other spots of her brain, spine, bone marrow and extensively in her liver.

We are reaching out to all of you as we are setting up a fund to help support Meena through any monetary means possible with medical bills (MD Anderson and non western treatments are not insurance covered) and life expenses. Meena and Mitch continue to work through this, but welcome support where possible. You are able to donate via Go Fund Me anonymously with anything you deem appropriate. Go Fund Me deducts a 2.9% fee on each donation that you can cover so that 100% goes to Meena if you see fit. You can also donate to Meena directly using her Venmo account: @Meena-Merchant. With her current state she is not in a position to respond via email or phone, however you can leave a message and when she is able to she will respond back.

Whatever support can be provided, be it through donation, prayers and good wishes will be appreciated by her and the family.

In her post in June which is below she had provided an update, where she was doing better but as of now her situation has declined unfortunately.

"I am so happy to report that I am doing BETTER. I mean the cancer is still there, in all the places, but it either hasn't grown or it has gotten smaller -- which is really good news. It's been a year and a half of worse and worse news, so this is such a welcome test result! I had surgery to remove my ovaries back in February, which has helped to control my hormone levels -- which is what we were trying to do since the beginning. The other major challenge I have been facing pretty much since last November is managing the pain around the muscles and bones in my hip/pelvis/femurs. At this point I really can't tell what's bone pain, nerve pain and muscle pain. But I am very happy to say as of right now I am off of the morphine. I've been working to rebuild all of the muscle tone I've lost in this area through chemo, radiation and just being in bed so much. Let me tell you it HURTS to rebuild muscles! But I can now go up and down the stairs with a lot more ease, I can take walks, and I can move faster now than over the last many months, so I am grateful. I definitely need continued reminders and support around doing exercises I need to do, and making sure I don't overdo it (a really tough one for me). I was able to see a doctor at MD Anderson in Houston in April. It was really great to get another opinion and know that more options are available if/when I need them. The facility and quality of care were really wonderful. Due to insurance constraints and the fact that I will have to pay out of pocket for any treatment I get at MDA, I am going to have my local doc work in conjunction with the MDA doc. I'll be doing all of the testing and treatments here locally and perhaps go to Houston a couple times a year when I can".

Thanks