For the last two years my parents have been struggling to find work in their respective fields. Every time they've gotten up on their feet and been able to focus on their job search, a new crisis has turned up.

Last year, their house was host to a major termite infestation, which my parents and my brother appear to have managed to fight off and repair. Just as they recovered from this, my mother, Stephanie, was diagnosed with Stage I or II (still unsure) invasive intraductal carcinoma (A type of breast cancer).

At this point my parents have been drained of all of their retirement resources and their bills are overtaking their ability to pay them. What little income they've been able to bring in during the last year has potentially placed my mother outside of the Medi-Cal income bracket (California state subsidized health insurance for the poor).

The good news: My mother's cancer has a very high survival rate. They are going to operate early next week (2/9/2015) and hopefully remove the primary tumor entirely. The insurance covers this. However, at the minimum she needs radiotherapy for six weeks after this surgery, and if they find that it has spread she will need to enter chemotherapy for an unknown period of time.

After the 20th, state insurance may no longer cover her healthcare and she likely needs to maintain coverage through Covered California. While the state may believe my parents can afford this expense, it would require my parents to sell their house of 20 years and effectively finish burning through everything they've ever worked for over their entire lives. The family is scrambling to come up with what we can, but we're running out of time.

The alternative we're trying to accomplish here is raising enough to ensure they do not lose their home while we are treating my mother's cancer. Additionally, we're attempting to raise enough to pay for my mother's health insurance expenses for the next year until my father can get a job and/or they can restore their MediCal coverage.

Every dollar donated will go to keeping food on their plates, and lifting the heavy burden my parents are bearing while trying to fight to keep my mother healthy in her battle with cancer. Please help my brother and I keep these two good, hard working people in a safe home while they stand back up again and try to rejoin the workforce.