Please help her with this fight
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Hi everyone. I'm trying to raise money for my mother who has started the fight of her life and we need your help. Her name is Gay Betz and here's her story:
Gay was, until recently, a school teacher. She taught middle school science in both East Los Angeles and Spring Valley California. Before that she taught in Seattle. I still, to this day, don't know why she chose middle school but I know she made a difference in many of the children's lives.   A few years ago she lost her house. Living in Southern California is very expensive but we made it work. Her and I would get a house or an apartment and live together for awhile. She kept teaching until she retired but kept a part time job with the school district accessing children as they entered the school system for the first time. She loved working with kids.
Because the job was part time and seasonal she was able to make trips up to Seattle to visit my sister Gina and her kids, during the holidays and beyond. She would spend a few months up there and then come back and work and spend time with me and with my son. 
 In August of 2018 while seeing her doctor she was told she was pre-diabetic with a blood sugar of 200. The advice was to increase her Metformin, which she tried to do, but it made her sick. She decided to cut down on her carbohydrates to address the problem.
She kept working and was planning that year's trip to Seattle. She noticed she was losing weight and didn't have much of an appetite.   She arrived in Washington at the beginning of September, where she continued to lose weight, became very tired, and started taking a lot of naps.
Gina took our mother to her doctor in mid November, where it was discovered that her blood sugar was 588. she was told to go straight to the ER. She was admitted and given IV insulin along with hydration and released the next day with the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. She was given an insulin pen and instructed on how to take her blood sugar and inject the insulin.
Two days after she was released from the hospital, she had an appointment with a gastroenterologist, who set up an endoscopy for her. He discovered she had gastroparesis, a complication from diabetes. He advised her to stop eating fiber, which was very difficult because she was vegan and ate a lot of vegetables. Not long after this she got an appointment with the Diabetes Center. 
 Both the primary physician and the diabetes doctor wanted her to have a CT scan of her pancreas to see if there were any other complications. In the meantime, she was getting ready to return here, to California, to go back to work.
She had the CT scan in late January 2019. Right before she was ready to drive back down here she found out that there was a mass on her pancreas. My mother was then diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. An appointment was immediately made with the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. There, the doctor said it looked like cancer might have spread to her lungs and there was a small lesion on her liver. A surgical procedure for a lung biopsy was arranged. In February, she was told that the biopsy showed that the node removed was cancerous, indicating that she had stage 4 pancreatic cancer which had metastisized. The tumor was pressing down on her mesenteric artery making it inoperable. After recovering from the lung surgery, she began chemotherapy in early March.
She had a CT scan after the first round of chemo which showed there was no new growth of the tumor and the lesion on her liver had shrunk. This was excellent news. Then her doctor told her that she would never go into remission and that all he could do was extend her life a little bit.
So, I set out on a quest to find someone who believed they could actually save my mother. I've spent a lot of time talking with PANCAN who is working on an early detection device for finding pancreatic cancer before stage 4. On a side note, if you're in your 60s or 70s and are told that you are pre-diabetic or diabetic and there is no history of diabetes in your family ask for a CT scan, ask for blood tests to look for cancer activity. Do whatever you can to make sure if it is cancer that you find it before it gets to stage 4. Anyway, during my search and reading peer reviewed journals I found that there has been a lot of success with immunoncology and SEF chemo.
The doctors I've talked to believe they can help my mother but unfortunately they are not covered by insurance. Some of them say that insurance will most likely reimburse some of the money and they will provide codes to submit to the insurance company after completion of treatment, meaning we would need money up front. Another doctor said that insurance won't cover any of it.
These treatments are reserved the wealthy. So because we have no money left my mother will surely die from this disease, unless the chemo kills her first.
Each round of treatment is anywhere from $4000-$8000 and she will need probably 25 of them. There is a clinic in Santa Barbara, Berkeley, and Toronto that I'm looking at having her go to. The treatments are Monday-Thursday every other week so we would need to stay in a motel for 3 nights every other week.
I don't want any other people to go through this either, but I can't help everyone. So, if there is any unused money at the end of her treatments, I'd like to set up a fund at the clinic to use on the next patient who is short on money and wants to live.
Thank you so much for reading my mother's story. Any donation you can give to help save her life will be much appreciated. No amount is too small. Our whole family thanks you.
Gay was, until recently, a school teacher. She taught middle school science in both East Los Angeles and Spring Valley California. Before that she taught in Seattle. I still, to this day, don't know why she chose middle school but I know she made a difference in many of the children's lives.   A few years ago she lost her house. Living in Southern California is very expensive but we made it work. Her and I would get a house or an apartment and live together for awhile. She kept teaching until she retired but kept a part time job with the school district accessing children as they entered the school system for the first time. She loved working with kids.
Because the job was part time and seasonal she was able to make trips up to Seattle to visit my sister Gina and her kids, during the holidays and beyond. She would spend a few months up there and then come back and work and spend time with me and with my son. 
 In August of 2018 while seeing her doctor she was told she was pre-diabetic with a blood sugar of 200. The advice was to increase her Metformin, which she tried to do, but it made her sick. She decided to cut down on her carbohydrates to address the problem.
She kept working and was planning that year's trip to Seattle. She noticed she was losing weight and didn't have much of an appetite.   She arrived in Washington at the beginning of September, where she continued to lose weight, became very tired, and started taking a lot of naps.
Gina took our mother to her doctor in mid November, where it was discovered that her blood sugar was 588. she was told to go straight to the ER. She was admitted and given IV insulin along with hydration and released the next day with the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. She was given an insulin pen and instructed on how to take her blood sugar and inject the insulin.
Two days after she was released from the hospital, she had an appointment with a gastroenterologist, who set up an endoscopy for her. He discovered she had gastroparesis, a complication from diabetes. He advised her to stop eating fiber, which was very difficult because she was vegan and ate a lot of vegetables. Not long after this she got an appointment with the Diabetes Center. 
 Both the primary physician and the diabetes doctor wanted her to have a CT scan of her pancreas to see if there were any other complications. In the meantime, she was getting ready to return here, to California, to go back to work.
She had the CT scan in late January 2019. Right before she was ready to drive back down here she found out that there was a mass on her pancreas. My mother was then diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. An appointment was immediately made with the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. There, the doctor said it looked like cancer might have spread to her lungs and there was a small lesion on her liver. A surgical procedure for a lung biopsy was arranged. In February, she was told that the biopsy showed that the node removed was cancerous, indicating that she had stage 4 pancreatic cancer which had metastisized. The tumor was pressing down on her mesenteric artery making it inoperable. After recovering from the lung surgery, she began chemotherapy in early March.
She had a CT scan after the first round of chemo which showed there was no new growth of the tumor and the lesion on her liver had shrunk. This was excellent news. Then her doctor told her that she would never go into remission and that all he could do was extend her life a little bit.
So, I set out on a quest to find someone who believed they could actually save my mother. I've spent a lot of time talking with PANCAN who is working on an early detection device for finding pancreatic cancer before stage 4. On a side note, if you're in your 60s or 70s and are told that you are pre-diabetic or diabetic and there is no history of diabetes in your family ask for a CT scan, ask for blood tests to look for cancer activity. Do whatever you can to make sure if it is cancer that you find it before it gets to stage 4. Anyway, during my search and reading peer reviewed journals I found that there has been a lot of success with immunoncology and SEF chemo.
The doctors I've talked to believe they can help my mother but unfortunately they are not covered by insurance. Some of them say that insurance will most likely reimburse some of the money and they will provide codes to submit to the insurance company after completion of treatment, meaning we would need money up front. Another doctor said that insurance won't cover any of it.
These treatments are reserved the wealthy. So because we have no money left my mother will surely die from this disease, unless the chemo kills her first.
Each round of treatment is anywhere from $4000-$8000 and she will need probably 25 of them. There is a clinic in Santa Barbara, Berkeley, and Toronto that I'm looking at having her go to. The treatments are Monday-Thursday every other week so we would need to stay in a motel for 3 nights every other week.
I don't want any other people to go through this either, but I can't help everyone. So, if there is any unused money at the end of her treatments, I'd like to set up a fund at the clinic to use on the next patient who is short on money and wants to live.
Thank you so much for reading my mother's story. Any donation you can give to help save her life will be much appreciated. No amount is too small. Our whole family thanks you.
Organizer
Angela Derby
Organizer
Carlsbad, CA
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