Insurance has failed us, help our mom beat cancer!

I honestly never expected that I'd have to make one of these, but unfortunately, the current health care system in the United States is broken.

Our beautiful, strong, amazing mother has recently been diagnosed with colon cancer. As many of you may know, this is sadly not her first time battling this terrible disease, having overcome uterine cancer in 2009. We have new information from multiple doctors and multiple diagnostic tests that show that the best and really only treatment plan/option at this time is to start Immunotherapy infusions prior to surgery. Due to a specific deficiency in MMR Proteins that she has, this immunotherapy would work directly to help shrink the mass by up to 98%, making surgery significantly easier, and reducing the chance of reoccurrence of cancer to less than 2%. This is a treatment that HAS to be done before surgery, not after. As far as cancer research goes, these numbers are absolutely unheard of (in a good way). For reference, patients who have surgery and undergo chemotherapy after have around a 22% chance of the cancer reoccurring, and doing chemotherapy prior to surgery can typically shrink the tumor by 5-7%.

THE PROBLEM: Insurance has denied our claim for treatment, stating that it is outside of policy to provide immunotherapy infusions without trying chemotherapy first. What they don't realize is that there would be absolutely NO benefit to doing chemotherapy after surgery, due to the MMR deficiency. They are making choices based on policy, and not taking into account the actual needs of the human being on the other side of the paperwork. The ABSOLUTE best chance our mother has of beating this completely is with Immunotherapy infusions, followed by surgical intervention.

Without insurance, the total out of pocket cost for these treatments will be $62,000 over the course of 6 weeks. This does not include any costs not covered by insurance for surgery, which will likely be a very large sum as well. This is not an amount of money that is feasible for anyone realistically, especially when you are on a time crunch. This is not something that we can afford to wait on, but it's also not something we can afford to NOT do at all.

Which brings me here, desperately asking for help. We have filed appeals with insurance, looked into clinical trials, applied for other assistance programs, but I can't wait around for the corporations to take their time making decisions. My mom is absolutely the strongest person I've ever know, and has been through too many medical hardships already. It doesn't matter if it's $10.00 or $0.10, literally ANYTHING helps. If you can't afford to donate at this time, please please PLEASE share this with anyone and everyone you can. If there is anything I can offer you in return, I'll do it. I'll walk your dogs, I'll clean your house, I'll pull your weeds, I'll pick up your groceries, ANYTHING to get my mom the treatment she needs.