help during cancer treatments

my name is rachel and i’m 30 years old. as most of you know, i’ve been dealing with brain cancer since i was 21. i had a brain surgery to remove the tumor on september 1st, 2015 and it came back as a grade II astrocytoma. i was stable until 2019. my routine MRI’s shown that it had grown back i had another brain surgery on april 9th 2019. i wasn’t so lucky that time and it came back to be a grade III astrocytoma, also known as AA3. they were able to remove 100% of the tumor visible to the human eye but with this type of tumor, it likes to branch out like octopus tentacles and it grasps at other parts of the brain and it almost always returns (hence my recurrence) I did 30 treatments of radiation alongside 42 days of temodar chemotherapy pills and then took one month to heal and then started on 6 additional months of high dose temodar. i was stable again for a little over 4 years. i thought i knocked it out of the park this time around, but i was wrong. in november of 2023 i had another routine MRI and the doctors has told me “it’s back, and there’s not only one tumor anymore, there is now 2 of them and surgery is no longer an option” based off where it is located in my brain now. it is extremely close to the motor strip as well and the corpus callum so they said i would definitely come out with some type of deficit such as blindness or i would lose the ability to walk, talk or drive. i have a 7 year old very active little boy, so i told them “you’re not doing anything to me that could cause me to come out differently than when i came in so whatever you have to do let’s do it” my neuro-oncologist talked with a new radiation doctor and that doctor had talked to the team of folks who did my proton therapy in 2019, and together it was decided the best course of action right now is to have another course of radiation followed by even higher doses of temodar so we can attack it aggressively. about 3 weeks ago, i received a phone call saying the doctors at UC were confident they could do a needle biopsy so we could at least know what we are dealing with. my tumor could still be a grade 3, but it could have gotten worse and turned to a 4, or GBM. GBM is the deadliest form of brain cancer and it has an average of 12-18 months for surviving once you are diagnosed. granted i haven’t had GBM, ive still been dealing with cancer for the last 9 years so it doesn’t seem very promising for me right now. i was told i have about 2 years left but i am determined to prove the doctors wrong and show them cancer picked the wrong person. as far as treatment goes, the option to go with proton radiation was a no brainer. proton therapy is very precise and doesn’t damage surrounding healthy brain matter and given i’m only 30, that is what we are going for again so we don’t cause even more brain damage. since it is my second time getting it, the side effects are higher. seizures are very common in those who have to get radiation to the same area of the brain. but i know i need to get this done so i can survive and be here as long as i can for my son. there are less than 40 proton treatment centers in the entire united states and we are fortunate enough that there is one in west chester ohio. it is still 80 miles round trip, 5 days a week, it will take about 3 hours out of the day with driving and waiting and getting the radiation. 80 miles a day isn’t a walk in the park when the price of gas fluctuates so much. i also am not allowed to drive myself because it makes you fatigued so parts of this is going to go towards gas for whomever takes me up there. i was also advised to not work while all of this is going on because the high dose chemo will keep me pretty sick constantly and the radiation will have me too tired. i have worked since i was 16, so all of this is new to me. i’m not used to asking for help or seeming like i can’t handle things on my own but right now i need help. being a single mom during all of this makes it so much heavier. weston was only 3 the first time i went through this, now he’s 7 and he is going to see that something is wrong with me once i start losing my hair or i can’t get out of bed to take him somewhere to play but that is a whole nother battle itself. i am doing this gofund me to try to stay afloat during all of this since i cannot work. the disability i do get is barely enough to get by as is and now without working, i dont know how im going to do it. please find it in your heart to share this or please donate if you can. i would love to get the word out just so i can have support during these hard moments. i know god has got my back and i will come out on the other side of this. thank you for reading.