Emily Ann’s Team

Emily Ann is my 26 year old daughter that has been diagnosed with Invasive Moderately Differentiated Adenocarcenoma. Her doctors are dumbfounded as to why she has this cancer that is typically found in a middle 50 year old man. It belongs to someone who smokes or drinks or has extreme acid reflux. She does not smoke or drink and does not have extreme acid reflux. We have been told by all of her doctors that she is now their newest youngest patient they have ever had to diagnose with this cancer and were lost for words when they had to deliver the news to her. She has been graded a T-3 and with that comes less than a 50% survival rate but is very upbeat and strong willed with a positive attitude that she will beat this cancer and show it who is going to win.

Emily Ann is working as a CNA and is still in school working her way towards another position in the medical field. She has only been with her current employer for 8 months and we are not sure yet as of today how much FMLA if any she will qualify for. If she does not qualify for FMLA, chances are she will be let go from her position once her PTO has been used up and will lose her insurance simply due to not being able to afford the Cobra payments.

The most FMLA she would be entitled to is 12 weeks and if qualified, a huge chunk will be used towards the beginning part of her treatment. She is facing 6 weeks of Chemotherapy once a week and 6-7 weeks of radiation 5 times a week to be done consecutively with Chemotherapy. There is a clinical trial treatment her doctor wants her to have because he feels from what he has read and heard that it has a high success rate of putting her into remission and allowing the rest of the treatments to work at getting arid of the tumor and lymph nodes that are effected as well. But due to her insurance, they will not cover it simply because of where it would need to be done and the company she works for. The two hospitals are competitors and each other’s insurance is not covered at the others facilities.

Looking at more towards the end of October for treatment to begin as they get the mapping done, port installed and everything else set up. Plus making sure it will be covered and having to fight with insurance. Then a 4 week break to be followed by a very difficult surgery; which the doctor said it will be worse than the treatments she will have had prior to it, and will require significant amount of time off. With the time of year we are in, most of her expenses will be this year with the surgery being in January and a new deductible. He doctor has said she will be able to work the first 3 or 4 weeks of her treatment but after that it will be extremely hard if not impossible to work. During this time period, if she is not able to stay in school her student loans will no longer be considered as deferred and payments will be expected to be made.

Between medical expenses, school loans and regular expenses there is no way she will be able to make all payments. As of today (10-16-21) she is already over $3000 in debt with medical bills which was spent trying to figure out what was wrong with her. We anticipate her surgery to be done in Chicago , which will have additional costs for lodging and transportation. I spoke with The American Cancer Society in regards to their lodging policy and other forms of help. Due to COVID, their lodge is currently closed and they are not able to help which means we will have to get a hotel room for however long it will be while she is there recuperating. More money than she or I have.

The money we are trying to raise is to cover her medical bills and expenses, travel to and from Chicago as well as hotel fees and then if any left over the cost of her student loan payments if they should no longer be deferred.

Emily Ann is not married and does not have children, so there is no other income or insurance she can depend on to make sure she can keep the doctors she currently has and will be financially unable to handle the large amount of debt she will be in. With the uncertainty of all this, we can not even begin to guess at when she would be able to go back to work.

Thank you for supporting Team Emily Ann. She and I truly appreciate all of the support at this difficult time in her life.