Stand with Natalie: Help To Reach Her Dying Cancer Wish

This is a long one my friends. If it doesn’t hold your attention I take no offense, but there are some things I want to share with this world. This week I got some devastating news that I felt in my heart, but wasn’t ready to hear. My doctor in all his obligation to be honest about this rollercoaster of an incurable disease that takes what it wants, told me the truth but with precedent that he is not GOD. Due to a worsening pet scan, he told me I have probably 1 year to live. Something about that visit turned me inside out but right side up. You see there is something about having a terminal illness that no one ever tells you. But it feels like you are somewhere in the middle. You are living and dying. You are here and somewhere else. You are smiling and crying. You are hopeful and devastated. You can’t help it. People say live your best life but they don’t know until they walk the journey of knowing death is inching closer to you than you expected. The fear of the unknown sneaks into your days, your hours, your minutes. This journey has turned my life completely upside down. It took things from me I can never get back. But my GOD if it hasn’t shown me the true meaning of life. My GOD if it hasn’t shown me how growing old is such a blessing that we take for granted. My GOD if it hasn’t shown me how lucky we are to be human and how precious time is.

My doctor also told me with the time you have do the things you want to do. I thought about that deeply. I realized im not going to do things I’m not capable of. I’m not going to do anything extreme or travel the world or do things I had planned but can’t fit it. I want to spend the time with the people I love the most. The people who fill my cup and make my soul truly happy. I want to soak them up and take mental photographs of every memory. You see I believe we all die with regrets. Things we never did, the dreams we never had the guts to fulfill, the times we stayed quiet when we wanted to speak up, the chances we never took. But you know what I tried my best in this life. And I have to be at peace with the fact that I didn’t follow my heart sometimes, I didn’t chase my dreams, I never wrote that book I wanted to write. But I think I can die in peace knowing that I loved the mightiest I could.

My sister told me recently atoms never die and I want to believe that’s true. Because I know I will live on in the way I touched and influenced the lives of the ones I loved. I know there’s a piece of me they will always have with them. I know they will smile every time they think of me. The saddest part is I won’t live to see enough. I wish I could see it all. Especially my daughter. She’s a rock, unapologetically herself. She’s the things I wish I could have been. I wish I could see the woman she becomes. I wish she didn’t have to lose her mother at an age where she didn’t get enough of me. But I know I will live on in them and that will have to be enough for now.

For this time I have left, whatever it may be, I want to love deeply and truly. My life was tough but you know what I was lucky. I was lucky, and I hope that you would have a life as lucky as mine, where you can wake up one morning and say I don’t want anything more because I loved as much as I could. My goodness, 35 years don’t they go by in a blink.

Im going to ask for something a little crazy and I hope people don’t thing I’m being selfish. I’m going to raise my gofundme amount to an absurd amount of money that I would never ask for ever but given the circumstances I want to try to complete some things. I’m going to raise it to $100,000. I don’t have to reach that goal and that’s fine. But I want to cover all the bills and expenses that are hanging over my head. Mainly because of a company called Lincoln financial which is in control of disability payments and wants to offset any previous social security payments paid out to us, leaving us in some debt. I want to fix my car. I want to be able to take my family to a restaurant when we want. I want to be able to say yes to my daughter when she ask to go to target, instead of “no sweetie we don’t have it right now”. I want to be able to pay off debt, have money to live without needing to borrow from people, and have some future funds set up for my family. I was the main provider of my family as a family physician and once I got let go of my job I needed to rely on substantially lower social security and disability payments.

At first my dying wish, was to go to my favorite place in the world Puerto Rico, and take the 6 people I love most in the world on vacation. I want to feel the sun. I want to leave the stress, the fear, and the heaviness of all of this in the ocean and let it flow away. I want to feel the power of GOD or of a higher power in the happiness of the people I love. I think if I could experience this I will be less fearful of death, more accepting.

However due to how poor my health is right now I know I won’t make it on an airplane let alone even through the airport. So I raised the gofundme to an amount I know I will never reach but my dying wish is to leave my family with some financial safety when I leave. I lost my life insurance when I lost my job as a physician. It will give me peace to know that I can leave something behind for them once I die. To have a fresh start, get out of Philadelphia, get Nelly to a better school, maybe they put down on a small row home, or maybe a fund for Nelly after she graduates high school. These dreams give me hope and peace and help me to be more accepting of my fate knowing they can live on and get a fresh start after me. This is my dying wish and makes me more accepting of death.

Death is not bad or dark, he is not a void, he is simply a liaison to a destination point. I will be scared when he comes, I won’t be ready, who could ever be. But maybe just maybe I can have this feeling in my heart, if GOD grants me the opportunity to say goodbye to all of them and tell them some last words before he takes me, I can die knowing they will live on for me. There may be grief, there will always be a hole, but more than anything I want them to know their loved defined my lifetime and I’m happy enough with that and life can go on but I will always be with them, because my friends atoms never die.

This is my original story below: Please read if you need more information on my journey.

Hello everyone! For those of you who don’t know me. My name is Natalie Rivera and life has been a tough road for me. When I was 22 my father committed suicide the day after my wedding, a year before that my husband was diagnosed with MS. As I continued my journey to be a doctor through all of this turmoil I ended up getting stage II breast cancer in 2019 and got chemo, a mastectomy, and radiation. After beating that cancer and going into remission I graduated residency and finally fulfilled my dream of becoming a practicing family medicine doctor. I was so proud of myself and got to work my dream job for a total of 2 years, because in 2023 the breast cancer came back. I was diagnosed with incurable metastatic breast cancer. A diagnosis I will have for the rest of my life. It spread to everywhere in my bones. My entire spine, ribs, clavicle, shoulders, femurs, hips, SI joints, skull. The pain and chemo regimen was too much to keep working so I had to leave my job as a doctor.

The main problem with this, aside from the medical aspect, was the financial aspect. I was the sole provider of my family. After leaving my job I lost my sense of pride, I lost a great paycheck that supported my family, I lost all my benefits, I lost my insurance. And I was now left on my own to figure it all out. So I became reliant on disability and social security payments which are substantially lower pay. The biggest problem is that my disability payments paid by a company called Lincoln financial are now getting offset by prior social security payments as unbeknownst to me they are saying that is money owed to them. This issue has left me with less than the minimum to live. To pay rent, bills, car payments, car insurance, phone bills, insurance that I pay monthly for my family, whopping medical bills, and small things like gas, groceries, and just being able to survive.

Due to this I am asking for help and I cannot continue to live like this, not being able to make ends meet. Because of the stress of finances and trying to keep my family afloat, cancer has taken 2nd place in a time in my life when it needs to be primary. A recent pet scan I had shows worsening and growth of the cancer especially in my liver. There are now numerous lesions in my liver and the disease after a period of dormancy in my bones is now very active again leading to debilitating pain. I am trying to keep going but it is getting harder and harder.

If I could ease some of this financial burden I can start to focus on me again and fighting this cancer with all I have. Please if you have it in your heart to help my family through this period. I can barely afford gas and groceries. My car needs repairs, I am behind on rent payments. My daughter wants little things I cannot provide for her. It is a dark period for us. Please help us to ease some of this burden. Any amount donated will help. I understand many families are going through their own issues so I don’t taking as for this help lightly as I know life is very hard. So even if you cannot donate, sharing my story will also help tremendously. Thank you for listening and understanding my fight and my journey. Everyone in my life has been an angel, especially some friends whom know who they are, whom have provided me with help I cannot begin to thank them for. Thank you again and love to you all.

Natalie Rivera cancer warrior whom will fight for time with the ones I love forever.