Hi, I'm Sonia, and together with my brother David, we created this fundraiser in 2024 to help support our mom Michaela's fight against Stage 4b ovarian cancer—a fight we always knew would be lifelong.

When we first created this page, we were terrified of what was ahead.

Over the next two years, Mom endured chemotherapy, countless appointments, repeated cross-country trips from North Carolina to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, a massive 7+ hour surgery, an unexpected wrist fracture and surgery that delayed her cancer treatment, and more than a year of maintenance therapy. And she fought her way through all of it.

She rang the chemotherapy bell loud and proud on December 6, 2024. Her major surgery had an outcome better than we ever could have hoped for. She continued maintenance treatment with Avastin and eventually completed that too.

And then, for a while, Mom was doing incredibly well.

Her scans looked good. She felt good. We started adjusting to life without cancer treatment controlling every week. We knew the risk of recurrence was always there, but after more than two years of living from appointment to appointment, we finally started to breathe again.

Until now.

The News We Feared: Mom's Cancer Is Back

In August 2026, we received the shattering news we have feared from the beginning: Mom's ovarian cancer has returned.

Recent imaging revealed multiple new growths. We are now working with her medical teams at UNC Health and MD Anderson to determine exactly what we're facing and what comes next.

We anticipate more testing, more treatment, and more trips back to Houston in the coming days, weeks, and months.

Knowing ovarian cancer could return and actually hearing the words "it's back" are two very different things.

After everything Mom has already endured, we're devastated.

But we're also ready to fight.

The difference this time is that we're entering this next fight after the first one depleted every financial resource we had.

So, more than two years after this fundraiser began, we find ourselves asking for help again.

Help Us Help Her — Again

We've spent our lives watching Mom endure countless hardships while somehow continuing to show up for everyone around her. She worked tirelessly to give my brother and me the best life she could. She has poured her time, energy, and love into everything and everyone.

And from 2009–2019, she became the full-time caregiver for her own mother post-stroke as dementia progressed from its early stages through the end of her life.

Mom sacrificed years of employment, income, and retirement security so our grandmother could be cared for at home.

Mom has spent much of her life taking care of everyone else. This time, we want to make sure all of us can take care of her.

And if you donated, shared, prayed, sent a message, provided a meal, helped us travel, or simply followed Mom's journey during her first fight, please know:

Your help got her here.

You helped make those trips to Houston possible. You helped us stay by her side. You helped us keep going during one of the hardest periods our family has ever experienced.

Most importantly, you helped give us more time with our mom.

We will NEVER forget that.

Now, unfortunately, we need help getting her through whatever comes next.

Meet Our Mom, Michaela

If you're just finding our story, we'd love for you to know a little about the woman you're helping.

Our mom has a heart of gold. She's a mom, grandma, wife, cat mom, caregiver, survivor, and one of the hardest-working people we know.

She's witty, kind, sassy, and stubborn in all the right ways.

We lovingly call her "Happy Feet" because when a good song comes on—especially Prince—those feet start moving. She's an ice cream and cheesecake lover and doesn't need much to make her happy.

She's also started over with almost nothing more times than either of us can count. She never shied away from scrubbing toilets, cleaning hotel rooms, or doing whatever work was necessary if that's what it took to make sure her family had food on the table.

She's never asked for or needed much materially. Instead, she taught us to cherish our time with the people we love.

And we want more time with her.

She's already survived so much in her lifetime, and cancer is just another opponent that's going to have to fight like hell if it wants to take her from us.

Her story isn't finished.

How We Got Here

In April 2024, our entire world turned upside down. The dull pain Mom had been feeling for months wasn't gas or constipation, as we initially suspected. Instead, it was an easily overlooked sign of something much bigger aggressively and silently spreading throughout her body.

Testing ultimately revealed Stage 4b ovarian cancer (serous carcinoma, high-grade), an aggressive form of ovarian cancer that is often discovered only after it has already spread.

Mom had multiple tumors and abnormal growths throughout her abdominal and pelvic region, with disease involving areas including her spleen, liver, colon, peritoneum, omentum, and mesentery.

Within days, we went from having no idea a significant danger existed to suddenly confronting metastatic cancer.

And our family had only recently been through cancer with me (Sonia).

I was diagnosed with Stage 1 kidney cancer in 2022 and underwent surgery that unfortunately resulted in a serious complication, trauma care, a temporary ileostomy, and a much longer recovery than expected.

We thought we'd gotten through cancer. Less than two years later, it came (again) for our mom.

The questions immediately flooded our minds:

Why her?

What did she ever do to deserve this?

What if we lose her?

If we could have taken the cancer from her and fought it ourselves, we would have.

Once the initial shock passed, we knew we had to act—and act quickly. We decided there was one place we wanted Mom to go for the best chance we could possibly give her: MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

We knew traveling repeatedly from North Carolina to Texas would bring enormous stress, effort, and expense.

But if it meant giving Mom the best odds possible, we were going to find a way to make it work.

And with your help, we did.

What Mom Has Already Survived

Because of the extent of Mom's disease, surgery wasn't initially possible. She first needed chemotherapy to try to shrink the cancer enough for doctors to operate. What followed was months of treatment, scans, appointments, and repeated travel between North Carolina and Texas.

Then came an enormous surgery lasting 7+ hours and involving multiple surgeons. It carried significant risks, but somehow Mom walked away with the best—and one of the least expected—outcomes we could have hoped for.

And cancer wasn't her only challenge.

During treatment, Mom suffered a two-bone wrist fracture that required surgery and forced her entire chemotherapy and cancer surgery schedule to be adjusted.

Still, she kept going. On December 6, 2024, Mom rang the chemotherapy bell.

After chemotherapy and surgery, she moved into maintenance therapy with Avastin, requiring continued treatment and monitoring. Eventually, she completed that too.

Her scans continued looking good.

She began feeling more like herself.

We had time when treatment wasn't consuming our lives.

We had breathing room between appointments.

We got to experience Mom doing well again.

Those months were an incredible gift.

Unfortunately, ovarian cancer had other plans.

And now the fight begins again.

Why We Need Help Again

The first fight took an enormous financial toll on our family.

Since Mom's diagnosis, we've made countless trips between North Carolina and MD Anderson in Houston, in addition to frequent trips for care here in North Carolina. Flights, transportation, lodging, food, medical expenses, medications, and simply keeping our household functioning while caregiving added up quickly.

We exhausted savings and retirement funds, accumulated debt, sold belongings, sought charitable assistance, and stretched every resource available to us. Time away from traditional employment has allowed Sonia to remain by Mom's side as her primary caregiver—which became absolutely necessary—but financially, the timing could not have been worse.

We've never been a family of significant means, only wealth in love and laughter, but we managed to stay afloat by pooling our resources until they ran dry. That's where we are today.

The Help We've Received Has Mattered

We don't want this page to give the impression that we've gotten here alone. Far from it. Friends, family, strangers, cancer organizations, hospital assistance programs, manufacturer programs, lodging charities, and the people who donated to this GoFundMe have helped us repeatedly.

We've received help with medications, lodging, transportation, groceries, gas, medical expenses, and household bills.

Organizations such as The Ballard House have even helped provide accommodations during our Houston trips when rooms were available.

And the donations made through this fundraiser helped us survive 2024 and continue getting Mom the care she needed.

We are profoundly grateful.

As Mom's health improved and active treatment eventually ended, donations understandably slowed and then largely stopped. And we were grateful to reach a point where there wasn't constantly another crisis to share.

We hoped we'd have more time before needing to update this page with bad news. Unfortunately, that time has come.

What This Recurrence Means Financially

We're now facing another round of cancer care without the financial resources we had at the beginning of her first fight. This fight will consist of more chemo and further testing. Chemo begins in the next days.

Meanwhile, the expenses and debt from the first fight haven't disappeared. We have no meaningful savings, emergency fund, or financial cushion left. And that's what scares us most. It's not simply the debt already behind us.

It's the possibility of knowing Mom needs something medically and not having the money available to act quickly.

We don't want finances deciding how soon we can get her to Houston.

We don't want to wonder whether we can afford transportation, lodging, or food while she's receiving care.

And we don't want to have to choose between keeping our household functioning and giving Mom every opportunity available to keep fighting.

We firmly believe that part of fighting cancer involves mindset, too. Mom deserves to focus her energy on healing and living—not worrying about whether her family can afford the next appointment.

We want to preserve her hope.

How Your Donation Will Help

All funds donated will directly support Michaela and our family's ability to care for her throughout this recurrence, including:

More than anything, your support gives us the ability to respond when Mom needs us without first having to ask whether we can afford to.

If You've Helped Us Before

Asking for help the first time was difficult.

Asking again is even harder.

But if you've already supported Mom's fight, we want you to know that your contribution mattered. You helped us get her to Houston. You helped put gas in the car and food on the table. You helped us remain beside her during chemotherapy, surgery, recovery, maintenance treatment, and countless appointments. You helped carry our family through a period when we genuinely didn't know how we were going to make everything work.

And most importantly:

You helped give us more time with our mom.

There is no way we can adequately express what that means to us.

If you're in a position to donate again, we would be incredibly grateful. But if you can't, please don't feel like your previous support wasn't enough. Sharing this page with someone new is also an enormous gift.

One share can put Mom's story in front of someone who has never met her but feels moved to become part of her fight.

If You're Just Finding Our Story

Welcome to our little family. We wish you were meeting us under different circumstances, but we're grateful you're here.

If Mom's story moves you and you're able to help, please know that no amount is too small.

$1 helps.

$5 helps.

$10 helps.

$25 helps.

$100 helps.

Every donation becomes part of the safety net we're desperately trying to rebuild around Mom.

And if donating isn't possible, please share her story. Send this page to a friend. Post it to social media. Share it with a group, organization, church, workplace, or community that might be willing to help.

The more people who see Mom's story, the greater our chance of building the support we'll need for the fight ahead.

And more than anything, we welcome your prayers, good thoughts, encouragement, and love.

We're Not Done Fighting

Cancer has already taken a lot from our family. It's taken time, money, security, and so much more. It's taken pieces of our lives we won't get back. But it hasn't taken Mom.

She fought incredibly hard to get here.

We're going to fight just as hard to keep her here.

The first time around, an incredible community surrounded our mom and helped us carry a burden that was too heavy to carry alone.

Now the cancer is back.

We're asking that same community—and hopefully some new friends—to surround her once again.

Thank you for every donation, every share, every prayer, every message, and every person who has loved our mom alongside us.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for helping us continue this fight.

With love and gratitude,

David & Sonia

Michaela's Son & Daughter

P.S. If we're ever fortunate enough to raise more than our family ultimately needs for Mom's care, we intend to pay that kindness forward by supporting organizations that provide assistance to cancer patients and their families.