Help a family of six

Hello, my name is Steve Hoekstra. Never would I have thought I’d be starting a go fund me. Three and a half years ago (2020) my amazing wife was diagnosed with stage 3C Breast cancer. We had help from friends with meals and we kept on top of the bills for the first year.

Sara went through 20 weeks of chemo, 25 rounds of radiation, a Mastectomy of her left breast and a lymphectomy under her left arm (over 25 lymph nodes were removed) more recently (July 2023) she has started the reconstructive process at U of M, she had a portion of her back taken out to build a new boob, they also put an extender in to slowly stretch her flap. However she ended up with narcosis and had an emergency surgery in September to start the reconstruction process over. This last surgery was a successful one. She now is in the healing process waiting for December to put a new extender in. After that about six weeks of extensions she will have an implant put in, then her right boob reduced to match her new left boobs size.

I write this now because as much as we thought we could keep up with the bills and keep our four kids (18 senior in high school, 13 8th grade and twins in 1st grade) somewhat unchanged from their normal routine and in sports, we have failed financially, we both have great jobs and good health insurance, however Sara hasn’t been able to consistently work and the medical bills (including out of coverage Ann Arbor) due to not having the best medical care in Kalamazoo the medical bills have become unmanageable.

To compound the financial problems our 2017 Suburban caught fire this past Sunday and was a total loss, luckily all 4 kids myself and Sara got out of the vehicle in time.

we are now swimming in debt and don’t have a vehicle that can transport our entire family of six.

Thank you God Bless