Dear Friends and Family,

We are reaching out to share what our family has been walking through and to ask for your faithful prayers during an incredibly difficult and unexpected season.

In early September, my mom began experiencing severe, widespread pain that kept her up through the night. For many months, she went from appointment to appointment, undergoing countless tests and screenings for every type of cancer the doctors could think of. Despite her persistence, nothing initially appeared on the scans.

My mom finally received a set of lab results on Christmas Eve that confirmed she had cancer, but she didn’t tell us. After spending Christmas weekend with our family, my mom and my sister Natasha went to the ER, where a CT scan confirmed devastating news: Stage 4 metastatic pancreatic cancer, one of the most aggressive and painful cancers.

My siblings and my dad immediately dropped everything to be by her side.

The road since diagnosis has been extremely difficult. My mom has had 3 procedures in 4 weeks. It has been heartbreaking to witness all that my mom has had to endure this month. Because of the holidays, hospitals had limited staff and getting the necessary tests and procedures has been slow-going. Despite the bad time of year and the slow-moving bureaucracy of the hospital system, our family has tirelessly advocated for her and God has shown up whenever we felt powerless.

After researching tirelessly for the best specialists, we knew that we needed to get her to the specialists at the UCLA Hirshberg Center for Pancreatic Diseases. We were told repeatedly that it was nearly impossible, because “all of California wanted to get to UCLA.” But God made a way and we got her there.

Our mom is our world. She is the mother of 5, the grandma of 2 grandkids, and we are expecting 2 new grandkids this year. We are praying that God grants mom time to meet them.

Any funds raised here will go towards our medical expenses from hospital stays and procedures, and also towards our costs as we are living out of hotels in Los Angeles to be close to my mom at UCLA.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your generosity, compassion, and love. Whether through prayers, meals, sharing our story, or financial support, we are deeply grateful.