My name is Deanna and my sister in law Michele was diagnosed with Stage 3 HER2 triple positive breast cancer at the end of June 2024. Her cancer has also metastasized to her lymph nodes. Over the last 6 weeks or so, Michele has undergone many medical tests and procedures to better understand and diagnose her cancer, and finally on August 8th she had her first chemo treatment. Her treatment is expected to be 5 months of chemo, followed by a month off, then surgery (either a lumpectomy or mastectomy), then recovery from surgery for a month or so, and then beginning radiation and continuing on with more chemo. All in all we can expect her treatments to go on for close to a year, if not longer.

Michele has been told to expect to lose her hair and not feel great during her treatments and was told she should not work during this time so she has been off work for the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately, Michele was working a contract job when she was diagnosed and that meant she had to just quit her job. She does not have any benefits or insurances that she can lean on from a job. She has lost all of her income, and while she has applied to things like OW, EI, and ODSP they take time to approve. She has also been warned by the social worker that they take your spouse's income into consideration and they don't allow him to make much before they either take money off of your income, or deny you altogether.

This is where the gofundme comes in. Michele feels super awkward that I am even doing this because she doesn't like to ask for help, but the reality is, they have lost her income and they can't afford to live off of her husbands income alone. When you add in the extra costs of parking at the hospital for her treatments and that makes things even harder. We considered trying things like a meal train, but Michele has celiac disease, and her husband and daughter both have nut allergies, so eating food made by other people is very risky. Michele, has to follow very strict rules to ensure she doesn't get cross contaminated even from crumbs of regular bread for example. So we decided a gofundme was the best option because then she can use this money towards groceries, parking, and life in general while she goes through these treatments. The last thing she needs to be worried about right now is finances. We need her to put all of her energy into fighting this cancer. We came up with this total by calculating her income over a year, hoping that treatment is over at that point (though we won't know until that time gets closer). We know that times are hard for everyone right now, but every dollar makes a difference and we're just hoping to ease some of this stress for Michele. If you prefer to contact her and offer her help in another way, like gift cards or something like that, feel free to contact her or I and we can make that happen too.

Thank you for your time in reading this and for any support you can offer Michele. Thoughts and prayers, positive vibes, funds, or anything you can do is greatly appreciated.