When your body becomes your enemy, and the fight of your life means putting poison through your veins, it's hard not to think God has a pretty dark sense of humor. Monica is calling it his “Backhanded Blessing” that an unrelated surgery to repair the residual damages from her kidney auto transplant 2 years ago, led to a PET scan that found abnormal cell growth in her breast.

“Malignant” is the one word no one wants to hear and “Breast Cancer Stage Three” are an especially wretched four words to see. But here she is, laughing and crying at the backhanded blessing that brought her here.

Monica has just completed her first round of chemotherapy, a particularly vicious dose of what the patients in her support groups call “The Red Devil”. She will go through 6 months of rounds of chemo and in the process will lose her hair and her teeth which were previously damaged from the extreme courses of medications to fight kidney disease over the last several years. I pray her beautiful curls return, but she is looking for the silver linings and thinks it may be nice if it grew back straight. When she laughs at this, I know she is also saying a prayer to herself that it grows back at all but most importantly she lives to see her grandchildren.

Due to her extended recovery from her auto transplant, Monica’s only income source has been disability benefits. Recently, one of her 20 doctors wrote the wrong diagnosis on one of her DID forms and her disability benefits were severed. So now, while she is wondering how she will survive the chemo, she is also trying to navigate the bureaucratic system of appeals, rising medication costs, the cost of dentures and general living expenses.

To put it plainly, she is in dire financial need. Any donation you are able to spare would be a blessing for her. If you cannot give monetarily, she only asks for your prayers, love and light and to please share this post.

Any donations beyond her goal, will go to We Got This.org which allows cancer patients in need to post wish lists of basic items needed to help get through their treatments.