Please Help A 2-Time Cancer Survivor & Single Mom

Hi, my name is Theresa and I'm fundraising for my dear friend Andrea Lev, a two-time cancer survivor and a loving & dedicated single mom who is facing possible bankruptcy and loss of her home due to the medical bills from her most recent battle with cancer.

Andrea and I met over 15 years ago on our journey to become Moms (a dream we shared) while we were both in the waiting program to adopt from China. The wait was much longer than anyone expected, and during that time our friendship grew. We went to waiting parents meetings and all kinds of training together to get ready for the day we would get our referral to get our daughters from China. My referral came before Andrea’s, but she was super supportive when my daughter Sarah came home and has been a loving “aunt” to her from the beginning.

Andrea finally got her wish in 2010, bringing her daughter Miriam home, and she quickly became a part of my family as well. Our two families, along with several others who also adopted from China, have remained close over the years. We are like a large extended family, celebrating holidays & special occasions together, and helping each other out during both good times and bad.

Some of those bad times have been Andrea’s. In 2013, she was unexpectedly diagnosed with breast cancer. It was caught early so she was able to beat it with surgery and other treatments – but as a result she will be on medications for the rest of her life. Then, early this year, a new cancer was found attacking her tongue. She had to endure an 8-1/2 hour surgical procedure that required two surgeons working to remove part of her tongue and then rebuild it with tissue transplants and a skin graft, followed by a week in the ICU with a tracheostomy tube embedded in her neck. After finally being discharged home, Andrea had to heal for several weeks and wait for the pain to subside before beginning a regimen of speech, physical, and occupational therapies – and after those concluded, she underwent seven weeks of near-daily radiation therapy.

Andrea is a fighter determined to pay her own way, so even while still undergoing treatments she returned to work full-time as soon as she was medically cleared to do so. A Licensed Clinical Social Worker, she began working remotely and then in person, both at her employer’s facilities and doing home visits with families in the Hospice program. At first, it seemed that the worst effects of her cancer and the treatments were exhaustion, partial loss of her sense of taste (only some of which she will ever recover), the need to re-learn normal speech, weeks of intense pain, and lingering difficulties eating…

…but then she was presented with medical bills totaling more than $70,000 beyond what her insurance would cover.

This is much more than what Andrea has available. She is trying to work out a payment plan but the best deal that has been offered would leave her with too little money each month to pay her mortgage even if she spends nothing on utilities, food, or gas. Andrea’s family is trying to help, but their finances have already been almost completely drained providing care to her 92-year-old father, who suffers from severe dementia; even the funds from a reverse mortgage on the family home have been nearly exhausted.

My heart breaks for my dear friend to have suffered through the surgery, hospital stay, therapies, and radiation treatments to get to where she thought she was getting back on her feet only to be sent reeling in disbelief at the remaining out-of-pocket cost. I have started this campaign to raise as much money as I can toward her medical bills so she can get this all behind her and move on to enjoy her life with her amazing daughter Miriam.

To quote Andrea: “I didn’t choose to get sick. I just want to be able to watch my daughter grow up.”

Please give whatever you can to help my dear friend and her daughter get their life back and be able to keep living in their own home. Any donation will be appreciated, no matter how small – and if you can’t donate money, then your helping me raise funds by spreading the word about Andrea’s predicament will be a great help as well.

Thanks from the bottom of my heart for your support.