Let's help Marie beat breast cancer

Mariecris De Leon has been a much loved nanny to several generations of children in Beirut, usually the offspring of foreign correspondents posted to the Lebanese capital. Over the years, she used the money she was paid to support an extended family in Lebanon and back home in the Philippines, keeping little for herself. For instance, she always promised herself she would get a set of false teeth -- most of her upper teeth fell out when she was a child -- but somehow she always found someone else who needed the money more. She also poured her energy into her church -- she is a good and selfless person, always helping others. Now she needs our help.

Marie noticed a lump in her breast a couple of weeks ago. After rushing through all the usual tests, the news was not good. The cancer has invaded lymph nodes and her bones: metastatic, stage four breast cancer.  It is, though, a type of breast cancer,  HER2 positive, that will respond to treatment with the right combination of drugs. However, her health insurance will not meet the full cost of the drugs she needs (not even close). There will have to be chemotherapy -- because the cancer is so advanced and so aggressive. And there will be two different monoclonal antibodies, which will latch on to the HER2 receptor, stop the cancer from growing, and help Marie's immune system to kill it.

She is starting this course of treatment not knowing how she's going to pay for it.

Please help with anything you can afford to give.

Thank you. 

Paul Wood, Ruth Sherlock, Bryan Denton, and Maria Abi-Habib on behalf of Mariecris De Leon.