Support Jill's Battle Against Breast Cancer

Hello, my name is Jill and I was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer just after Thanksgiving last year (2023). I’m a year into my cancer journey and thought I would be close to the finish line at this point, but no such luck :(

I went through 6 months of chemotherapy while working full time. It was really hard physically and emotionally to work while having chemo. I had a bad side effect from Taxol (one of the chemo drugs) that caused my finger and toenails to die and fall off. But before they started looking bad physically, it felt like I dropped a brick on each on my fingers and toes. This process took several months to go through its stages of gross. I had to wear bandaids on my fingertips just to type. It was painful and horrible for a long time. The Adriamycin caused my entire body to ache, especially my bones, and I was extremely exhausted all the time. But I chose to work through it for 2 reasons. I knew I would have to save my PTO time for July when I had my double mastectomy. And I’m a good employee, meaning I come to work every day, I’m never late, always work past my 40 hours a week because we are a very busy company. I’m reliable, dependable, I follow the rules. I’ve worked for my current employer for 11 years. I am a dispatcher/routing supervisor for a national environmental company. My job is hard. It requires a lot of multitasking and handling problems that change minute by minute. But, I did it every day, sometimes 10 hour days, sometimes more. I take pride in being a good employee.

I had a double mastectomy at the end of July. My cancer was only on one side but I had a tumor and lymph node that were affected and I didn’t want to take any chances. The double mastectomy also included a plastic surgeon implanting spacing implants for future implants. The surgery went well, my surgeon estimated that I would be healed in 6-8 weeks and could return to work at that time. I went home with two drain tubes in place and a positive attitude. I wasn’t able to do much after surgery physically. I had the drain tubes in and open wounds to take care of. My amazing husband took care of everything.

Gardening is my passion. So, not being able to do much in the garden after surgery was depressing. But, my husband did all the physical work for me and I spent days just sitting out there enjoying the beauty.

About 4 weeks after surgery I got the drain tubes removed. This was an exciting day for me because you really can’t do anything with drain tubes hanging from you. They were annoying to say the least. Things were going good except I had a couple places where my wounds weren’t healing properly. My plastic surgeon decided I needed to get the drain tubes put back in and wounds re-stitched. So, I had another surgery. I was still having issues with healing after this surgery and I had an infection. The antibiotics I was taking weren’t working so I had to get a line put in to receive IV antibiotics. They started to clear up the infection but my surgeon decided that the spacers I had implanted were causing it. Sooooooooo, yep, another surgery. A couple days before Halloween I had a third surgery to remove the spacers and re-stitch the wounds, again. I needed to start radiation so my surgeon decided to postpone my reconstruction until afterwards.

This is the stage I am currently at. I am getting radiation daily until the end of the year. I will see my plastic surgeon in January to discuss my options for reconstruction. It will involve more surgeries, obviously but I don’t know how long this will take. I’m assuming 6-8 weeks after any surgeries I receive. I can’t work while going through these surgeries and the healing process involved. I wish I could, but I can’t. Due to this, I’ve had no income since September. I don’t need to explain what it’s like for me financially right now, most of us have been there at some point in life and it sucks. The bigger problem I have right now is with my deductibles. My deductible is $5k/year. I got diagnosed the end of November 2023 and that’s when the medical bills started rolling in. I’m now at the point where I can’t pay these medical bills because I have no income and no way to work until my journey is over. I owe $5k for 2023, 2024, and I will have another one next month for 2025. That’s $15k just in deductibles I owe at this point because of cancer. I don’t have free insurance, I pay for it through my employer. I have applied for every kind of disability at this point and it all gets denied due to having a ‘preexisting’ condition. It’s completely my fault that I got my mammogram in November. If I would have just been irresponsible and pushed my appointment off a month, I would literally not be on this situation financially right now. I would have received my ‘serious illness’ insurance that I elected for and have been paying for since January 1st. I was ‘diagnosed’ in November. My insurance didn’t start until January. It doesn’t matter that I had to elect to receive that insurance before I even knew that I had breast cancer. I was diagnosed after thanksgiving 2023 but my open enrollment ended the prior week. I had no idea I had cancer when I had to choose my elections for 2024. If I would have known that, I would have signed up for the most disability insurance I could. Instead, I chose a serious illness plan that will not help me in any way because of my diagnosis date. But they sure do want the $15k I will now owe them in deductibles because of cancer. If I would have just waited a month, a month, I would be ok financially right now. It’s completely MY fault. I’m an idiot. Insurance nowadays is a joke, everyone is dealing with it. I’m no different.

I started my breast cancer journey with an extremely positive attitude. I know that’s how I made it through chemo. Also I have wonderful family and friends who have been nothing but supportive throughout my journey. I definitely wouldn’t have made it this far without them. My husband is the greatest man alive and has saved me spiritually and every other way possible through this process. He really is incredible. I still have a positive attitude towards fighting my cancer but its gotten very difficult to stay positive with all the financial pressure on top of my ‘new norm’ of the moment. All I should be doing right now is focusing on recovery, physically AND mentally. Instead I have to worry about paying my bills. I am a responsible person. I am a good person. I am a kind person. I enjoy helping others and making people smile. When my cancer journey is over, I hope to be cancer-free, still sane, and financially ok. I will help other women with breast cancer in some way for the rest of my life. My goal is to have a platform in place where I can help others by the time I’ve kicked cancers butt :) there are so many little things that doctors don’t think to tell you. I want to help with those things and have it all in one place for women with breast cancer to find easily.