Mariah's Cancer Treatments

How to describe a hopeless disease in the same breath as the bright personality that is my best friend, Mariah? The more I look, the more it seems every other person has lost a family member or loved one to cancer, and at each turn, it remains consistent to say that cancer is a thief. Stealing appetite and hair, health and hope, energy and life. It strives to rob all around it of their joy, while the only treatment to combat it is poison. A poison that, in turn, offers a gamble and a bargain: a chance at survival, in exchange for that same health, and money. Money that, in her mid-twenties, Mariah is struggling desperately to earn herself, in spite of her declining energy to produce it.

For context, starting just after Christmas this last year (2022), Mariah has been undergoing chemotherapy treatments of the most extreme nature to combat a diagnosis of stage 3 acute myeloid leukemia. I've watched as cancer and poison have beaten Mariah down. The expected nausea has been merciless, the weakening of her body so immediate and intense that some days her legs cannot support her. Perhaps most frightening though, has been the toll on Mariah's heart, as exhaustion eats away at more than just her body, but the stamina to remain positive and kind to herself.

Initially, I clung to the reassurance that Mariah was insured, and would at least be able to afford her treatments while she dug in and endured. But it didn't take long for her insurance to claim her Lupus as a pre-existing condition, promising to cover only half her treatment expenses. Additionally, as the treatments progress, it becomes less and less tenable for Mariah to remain employed, and thus insured, leaving her financial future tenuous at best.

Recently, Mariah caught a fever for the second time in as many weeks, even after relaxing her efforts while working. While already being ravaged by chemotherapy, a fever can prove increasingly dangerous to her tenuous health. At worst, the combination could kill her. And then news came that, after her first round of treatment, her cancer had progressed to stage 5, and the demands of chemotherapy would only increase from here. With this as an omen to her physical capacity to remain working, I decided to breach the uncomfortable topic of money, and if she would allow me to set this up so those who have no other means to help, can.

As seems to always be the case in this disease, I have never known a kinder person with such unparalleled empathy, and I hope in setting this fundraiser up, she can begin to feel a modocum of that same love. I would spend every penny I had to do this for her, but I cannot. It's outside my reach. But, I pray, not outside what is possible.