Help Natalie's Next Chapter of Life

My name is Michele Soares and I would like to introduce you to my 31-yr-old daughter, Natalie Soares. She is our (my husband, Eliano’s and my) only child and I feel strange telling you just how wonderful she is because every mother thinks that of her child. We, the three of us, are independent people who don’t like to bother others with our needs. We have never been so needy as we are now with our dear daughter being so ill.

My daughter is a lab manager at a brain research lab at MIT and wants to return to work SO MUCH. She loves the city of Boston, adores her new apartment in Somerville. She is extremely creative. She is proving to me over and over again what a courageous, gritty woman she is as she meets the challenges of the dire illness that has struck her very existence.

She had been suffering from symptoms of vertigo through May 2022; in September, she began to lose the use of her right hand. Once she got in touch with a neurologist from MGH, she received an MRI and they discovered a growth on her cerebellum. She had a successful surgery to remove the tumor and had to be transferred to a rehab hospital, suffering from double vision and loss of the use of her right side. While in rehab, on December 22nd, she received the results of the pathology report, which determined that she did indeed have cancer and would need intensive radiation and chemo over a period of nine months.

Natalie has been given excellent care at MGH, with a plethora of neurological physicians, nurses, and therapists, hospital stays, and medications. In addition to wanting to heal and “get back to normal”, she would like to be able to pay her medical expenses which we are certain will be astronomical given all the specialists involved. Any assistance you can give her to surmount this financial mountain in her life would be most deeply appreciated.