Help Darcy with 2 Types of Cancer
Donación protegida
Help Darcy Miller while fighting Breast Cancer and Leukemia
(pictured Bene 476 Sport, photo courtesy Lori Ann Thwing).
My Aunt Darcy was diagnosed with breast cancer on October 31, 2017. As you can imagine it was also a shock to her family and friends when she was diagnosed with Leukemia just one year later on November 2018.
I'm reaching out in hope of getting her the help that she needs. Though partially covered by insurance, her treatments, time off work; multiple complications and just plain bad luck have led to a great deal of expenses. These expenses have been a major financial burden for Darcy. Through all of this her resources (savings account and 401K) have been depleted and she's having trouble paying the bills. Any help that she can receive will be greatly appreciated. We want her to be able to keep her chin up and concentrate her energy on getting well by keeping stress to a minimum. She's a loving, upbeat, enthusiastic person with a great deal of drive and energy. She's a women of faith, has a kind heart and she's always been the spark in any room. She couldn’t have any children so all of that love get’s divided between her two animals.
Before Diagnosis she lost her job of 24 years: Darcy had a great job. She was a government contractor as a Program Management Professional for over 24 years and most of those 24 years she worked two full time jobs. She admits that working 80 hours a week for so long was tough, but it allowed her be to be responsible for herself, paying her own way and achieving her own dreams. She responsibly saved and led a life happily single. Prior to the cancer diagnosis the company that she worked for all of those years decided to position themselves to sell. They knew that it would be more attractive to potential buyer's to reduce the workforce. Their plan was to lay off 10K salaried employees over the following 10 months. They came to her office on a Thursday after laying off her coworkers every Friday over 10 months. Prior to the layoffs they changed their generous severance pay benefit to only 2 weeks of pay. She tried to find work, but after potential companies saw her prior earnings, they feared putting their time and money into training would result in her resigning if she found a better paying job. After 9 months she settled in to a management job in retail. It was a substantial cut in salary and the health coverage was now high deductible. Even so, Darcy was happy to have found work.
Diagnosed with Breast Cancer: Since it was near the end of the year (Oct 31 2017) every cent of her medical treatments came out of pocket under her new high deductible medical plan until the 80/20 kicked in. January came quickly and again every cent came out of her pocket under deductible. Even after the 80% kicked in the medical bills were more than she could handle and they just kept coming! Darcy has no family members that live on the east coast, she went to every appointment by herself (biopsy's, ultrasounds, mammograms, genotyping; follow-up appointments; radiation, meetings with her cancer coordinators, medical oncologists and plastic surgeons. As independent as she's been all of her life, it's not something that she gave any thought to, she would do this alone. She continued to work until her surgery was scheduled. Darcy was so grateful that my grandmother made it possible for my Mom (that also has cancer) to fly in to help for 5 days during her first surgery.
Surgery and Complications: In mid December 2017 Darcy went out on medical leave for her surgery. Darcy developed complications. She had an allergic reaction to the adhesives that were used to close her incisions and one of her incisions opened. Shortly after recovery she developed a painful abscess that was approximately 5 inches long by 2 inches wide that required drainage and additional medical procedures. This caused her to be out on medical lease longer. She went back to work.
Radiation and Complications: Darcy continued to work when she began radiation therapy, but not for long! She endured 34 radiation treatments spanning over 2 months and went every morning Monday through Friday. She developed complications from radiation due to severe burning that encompassed her entire armpit and entire radiation area. The skin just fell off leaving an open wet wound that required dressings. She was in excruciating pain! Radiation was temporarily halted, but only for 4 days and then they had no choice than to radiate on top of her burns. It's no wonder with Darcy's great sense of humor, that she joked with the radiation team as they called her name and said that she was ready to "walk the green mile" to the radiation table. Darcy understood that their job was to "kill cancer cells" and that taking time off from radiation treatment was not in her best interest. At that time her radiation oncologist pulled her back out of work and put her back on medical leave that pays only 60% of her hourly rate. Darcy had to function for 10 weeks with her elbow raised above her head to keep the area from from sticking together. The radiation therapy also did permanent damage and caused necrosis (death of living tissue), adhesion's (scar tissue) and cellulitis that causes pain when she moves her arm and shoulder. All of these combined makes it more difficult to read mammograms resulting in multiple ultrasounds and mammograms on a more frequent basis. She also needs multiple 3D lung CT scans and bone density scans as her invasive cancer is known to metastasize to the brain, bone, liver or lung. All testing so far has shown no evidence of metastasis. She was out of work a total of 5 months.
Her dog, Keebler always keeps her company.
The "Pill from Hell": A very expensive genotyping test was performed to identify the most effective drug to keep her cancer from growing while also providing the best survival percentage. The drug identified for Darcy is called LETROZOLE taken once per day for the next 10 years. This drug's side affects wreaked havoc on Darcy's body. While she doesn't have every side effect, she has fatigue and pain in her bones, muscles and joints. She has headaches; dizziness; nausea; memory loss and changes in her gastrointestinal system. Other side affects that are less severe are chemical induced sweats and generalized weakness in her arms, legs and shoulders. Darcy refuses to discontinue this drug and take her chances in trade for quality of life. She also has refused to go on narcotics (opioids) as she’d rather live with the pain than become addicted to perscription drugs. She's a fighter! When she returns home from work, she goes to bed until the it's time to go to work the following day. The pain from the Letrozole has caused walking abnormalities, which place excessive stress on her heel bones, ligaments and nerves near the heel. This has caused painful bone spurs in four places on her feet. The company that she works for agreed to split her two days off in order to make it easier for Darcy to continue to work by giving her a day off mid-week. Her company has been so supportive during her fight.
Accidental Termination: With all of these medical challenges combined her team of medical professionals decided to wait and let her heal before doing any more surgical procedures. During that time a new employee from the company that Darcy worked for accidentally terminated her employment while she was on medical leave. Darcy didn't find out until the medical bills began arriving saying "insurance denied" and the stress level increased. Two months after being terminated Darcy's insurance was reinstated and the process began for insurance to pay their portion of back medical bills.
Car-No-More: Darcy had no car payments as she drove a 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse. While none of the windows opened anymore it still got her where she needed to go. On July 13, 2018 the inside cabin began filling up with exhaust. The car went to the junk yard. She had to purchase a used car and along with it came car payments.
Second Surgery and More Complications: In December 2018 Darcy was scheduled for reconstruction surgery. One of her incisions was about 22 inches across and the other 4 incisions were about 1 inch in length. They closed Darcy's incisions with "Dermabond" which is an adhesive and Darcy was back in the hospital during the Christmas holiday with a severe allergic reaction. Her skin blistered about 2 inches below her incisions and about 2 inches above her incisions. After a blister drained another blister was right behind it. It was one big wall of blisters which turned into wounds. The pain was excruciating. She was again on medical leave and out of work another 4 months making only 60% of her wage. On January 1, 2019 Darcy was again on deductible and all of her medical bills came out of pocket. By now she chose to deplete her retirement savings, rather than ask for any help. After that was gone she began charging for some living expenses and medical bills on her credit card.
Downsizing from Manager Position to Near Minimum Wage: In February 2019 while she was still on medical leave her manager contacted her to inform her that the entire department that she managed was going away nationwide and when she returns from medical leave she would now be a regular hourly employee and will be earning close to minimum wage. Darcy returned to work.
During this time my Aunt Darcy didn't communicate just how dire her financial situation had become. She's a person that's positive, hopeful and has a great deal of pride. It wasn't easy to convince her to allow us to create this page to help her.
Diagnosed with a 2nd Cancer Leukemia: November 2019: Darcy began getting multiple infections and was feeling even more fatigued. Her immune system was compromised from the breast cancer so she presumed that was the reason. However her medical oncologist called her into the office after getting approval from her medical insurance to perform another very expensive test. He informed her that (as he suspected) Darcy's test results results confirmed that she now has a second cancer, Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (high count B-cell). This is a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow — the spongy tissue inside bones where blood cells are made. The term "chronic" comes from the fact that it typically progresses more slowly than other types of leukemia. The term "lymphocytic" comes from the cells affected by the disease — a group of white blood cells called lymphocytes, which help your body fight infection. For her protection she had to begin a long series of vaccinations. So far she's received 9 of them and has she still has a more to go. Darcy was devastated by the news and just stared at her doctor. In January 2020 she was again on deductible and all of her medical bills were out of pocket. Her care for both cancers has now been transferred to Johns Hopkins. Darcy went to her first appointment and discovered that their billing department is much more strict about negotiating a payment plan for the medical bills.
Water Main Break: In February 2019, there was a water main break under Darcy's home. She was losing thousands of gallons of water a day and didn't have the funds for the repair. The entire line had to be replaced. So help stepped in and gave her a private loan until the end of May.
Another Mass Identified in Axilla: Her Medical Oncologist found a mass high in Darcy's right axilla (armpit). She's scheduled to go to Johns Hopkins next week to have this evaluated in radiology and get another mammogram.
Pandemic COVID-19 Closures: As we were gathering information to begin this fundraising campaign, we didn't think Aunt Darcy's situation would become any worse until the outbreak of the Pandemic COVID-19 struck the United States. Like so many of you, the company that Darcy works for had to close their doors indefinitely. She had to use the rest of her accrued sick leave to keep her medical insurance for the next week. Beginning next week they are going to give her 65% of her hourly wage (23 hours) and will defer her medical insurance premiums until the COVID-19 threat has been abolished. When Darcy's workplace re-opens she will not get her first paychecks as her medical premiums will be deducted until they are paid off.
Darcy's cancer has taken a toll on her body and the financial burden has caused her additional stress. It's been a slow snowball affect over 2 years to get to this point. She's about to lose everything that she loves and has worked so hard for over the years. She had to put her beloved horse that she's had for 16 years up for sale to help pay the bills. I feel so bad that she had to make the decision to offer such a special part of her family. Her horse was her life. It's just sad.
No contribution is too small and will help cover past and current medical bills, medications, vaccinations; due and overdue expenses, purchase groceries, etc.
Thank you for considering making a donation to help Aunt Darcy. If you’re unable to donate your prayers would be greatly appreaciated. Also I'd like to ask everyone to share, share, share this page on all of your social media networks . If you'd like you may always join the team fundraiser. Stay safe and practice social distancing.
With the deepest of gratitude for your generous support,
The Friends and Family of Darcy Miller
(pictured Bene 476 Sport, photo courtesy Lori Ann Thwing).
My Aunt Darcy was diagnosed with breast cancer on October 31, 2017. As you can imagine it was also a shock to her family and friends when she was diagnosed with Leukemia just one year later on November 2018.
I'm reaching out in hope of getting her the help that she needs. Though partially covered by insurance, her treatments, time off work; multiple complications and just plain bad luck have led to a great deal of expenses. These expenses have been a major financial burden for Darcy. Through all of this her resources (savings account and 401K) have been depleted and she's having trouble paying the bills. Any help that she can receive will be greatly appreciated. We want her to be able to keep her chin up and concentrate her energy on getting well by keeping stress to a minimum. She's a loving, upbeat, enthusiastic person with a great deal of drive and energy. She's a women of faith, has a kind heart and she's always been the spark in any room. She couldn’t have any children so all of that love get’s divided between her two animals.
Before Diagnosis she lost her job of 24 years: Darcy had a great job. She was a government contractor as a Program Management Professional for over 24 years and most of those 24 years she worked two full time jobs. She admits that working 80 hours a week for so long was tough, but it allowed her be to be responsible for herself, paying her own way and achieving her own dreams. She responsibly saved and led a life happily single. Prior to the cancer diagnosis the company that she worked for all of those years decided to position themselves to sell. They knew that it would be more attractive to potential buyer's to reduce the workforce. Their plan was to lay off 10K salaried employees over the following 10 months. They came to her office on a Thursday after laying off her coworkers every Friday over 10 months. Prior to the layoffs they changed their generous severance pay benefit to only 2 weeks of pay. She tried to find work, but after potential companies saw her prior earnings, they feared putting their time and money into training would result in her resigning if she found a better paying job. After 9 months she settled in to a management job in retail. It was a substantial cut in salary and the health coverage was now high deductible. Even so, Darcy was happy to have found work.
Diagnosed with Breast Cancer: Since it was near the end of the year (Oct 31 2017) every cent of her medical treatments came out of pocket under her new high deductible medical plan until the 80/20 kicked in. January came quickly and again every cent came out of her pocket under deductible. Even after the 80% kicked in the medical bills were more than she could handle and they just kept coming! Darcy has no family members that live on the east coast, she went to every appointment by herself (biopsy's, ultrasounds, mammograms, genotyping; follow-up appointments; radiation, meetings with her cancer coordinators, medical oncologists and plastic surgeons. As independent as she's been all of her life, it's not something that she gave any thought to, she would do this alone. She continued to work until her surgery was scheduled. Darcy was so grateful that my grandmother made it possible for my Mom (that also has cancer) to fly in to help for 5 days during her first surgery.
Surgery and Complications: In mid December 2017 Darcy went out on medical leave for her surgery. Darcy developed complications. She had an allergic reaction to the adhesives that were used to close her incisions and one of her incisions opened. Shortly after recovery she developed a painful abscess that was approximately 5 inches long by 2 inches wide that required drainage and additional medical procedures. This caused her to be out on medical lease longer. She went back to work.
Radiation and Complications: Darcy continued to work when she began radiation therapy, but not for long! She endured 34 radiation treatments spanning over 2 months and went every morning Monday through Friday. She developed complications from radiation due to severe burning that encompassed her entire armpit and entire radiation area. The skin just fell off leaving an open wet wound that required dressings. She was in excruciating pain! Radiation was temporarily halted, but only for 4 days and then they had no choice than to radiate on top of her burns. It's no wonder with Darcy's great sense of humor, that she joked with the radiation team as they called her name and said that she was ready to "walk the green mile" to the radiation table. Darcy understood that their job was to "kill cancer cells" and that taking time off from radiation treatment was not in her best interest. At that time her radiation oncologist pulled her back out of work and put her back on medical leave that pays only 60% of her hourly rate. Darcy had to function for 10 weeks with her elbow raised above her head to keep the area from from sticking together. The radiation therapy also did permanent damage and caused necrosis (death of living tissue), adhesion's (scar tissue) and cellulitis that causes pain when she moves her arm and shoulder. All of these combined makes it more difficult to read mammograms resulting in multiple ultrasounds and mammograms on a more frequent basis. She also needs multiple 3D lung CT scans and bone density scans as her invasive cancer is known to metastasize to the brain, bone, liver or lung. All testing so far has shown no evidence of metastasis. She was out of work a total of 5 months.
Her dog, Keebler always keeps her company.The "Pill from Hell": A very expensive genotyping test was performed to identify the most effective drug to keep her cancer from growing while also providing the best survival percentage. The drug identified for Darcy is called LETROZOLE taken once per day for the next 10 years. This drug's side affects wreaked havoc on Darcy's body. While she doesn't have every side effect, she has fatigue and pain in her bones, muscles and joints. She has headaches; dizziness; nausea; memory loss and changes in her gastrointestinal system. Other side affects that are less severe are chemical induced sweats and generalized weakness in her arms, legs and shoulders. Darcy refuses to discontinue this drug and take her chances in trade for quality of life. She also has refused to go on narcotics (opioids) as she’d rather live with the pain than become addicted to perscription drugs. She's a fighter! When she returns home from work, she goes to bed until the it's time to go to work the following day. The pain from the Letrozole has caused walking abnormalities, which place excessive stress on her heel bones, ligaments and nerves near the heel. This has caused painful bone spurs in four places on her feet. The company that she works for agreed to split her two days off in order to make it easier for Darcy to continue to work by giving her a day off mid-week. Her company has been so supportive during her fight.
Accidental Termination: With all of these medical challenges combined her team of medical professionals decided to wait and let her heal before doing any more surgical procedures. During that time a new employee from the company that Darcy worked for accidentally terminated her employment while she was on medical leave. Darcy didn't find out until the medical bills began arriving saying "insurance denied" and the stress level increased. Two months after being terminated Darcy's insurance was reinstated and the process began for insurance to pay their portion of back medical bills.
Car-No-More: Darcy had no car payments as she drove a 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse. While none of the windows opened anymore it still got her where she needed to go. On July 13, 2018 the inside cabin began filling up with exhaust. The car went to the junk yard. She had to purchase a used car and along with it came car payments.
Second Surgery and More Complications: In December 2018 Darcy was scheduled for reconstruction surgery. One of her incisions was about 22 inches across and the other 4 incisions were about 1 inch in length. They closed Darcy's incisions with "Dermabond" which is an adhesive and Darcy was back in the hospital during the Christmas holiday with a severe allergic reaction. Her skin blistered about 2 inches below her incisions and about 2 inches above her incisions. After a blister drained another blister was right behind it. It was one big wall of blisters which turned into wounds. The pain was excruciating. She was again on medical leave and out of work another 4 months making only 60% of her wage. On January 1, 2019 Darcy was again on deductible and all of her medical bills came out of pocket. By now she chose to deplete her retirement savings, rather than ask for any help. After that was gone she began charging for some living expenses and medical bills on her credit card.
Downsizing from Manager Position to Near Minimum Wage: In February 2019 while she was still on medical leave her manager contacted her to inform her that the entire department that she managed was going away nationwide and when she returns from medical leave she would now be a regular hourly employee and will be earning close to minimum wage. Darcy returned to work.
During this time my Aunt Darcy didn't communicate just how dire her financial situation had become. She's a person that's positive, hopeful and has a great deal of pride. It wasn't easy to convince her to allow us to create this page to help her.
Diagnosed with a 2nd Cancer Leukemia: November 2019: Darcy began getting multiple infections and was feeling even more fatigued. Her immune system was compromised from the breast cancer so she presumed that was the reason. However her medical oncologist called her into the office after getting approval from her medical insurance to perform another very expensive test. He informed her that (as he suspected) Darcy's test results results confirmed that she now has a second cancer, Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (high count B-cell). This is a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow — the spongy tissue inside bones where blood cells are made. The term "chronic" comes from the fact that it typically progresses more slowly than other types of leukemia. The term "lymphocytic" comes from the cells affected by the disease — a group of white blood cells called lymphocytes, which help your body fight infection. For her protection she had to begin a long series of vaccinations. So far she's received 9 of them and has she still has a more to go. Darcy was devastated by the news and just stared at her doctor. In January 2020 she was again on deductible and all of her medical bills were out of pocket. Her care for both cancers has now been transferred to Johns Hopkins. Darcy went to her first appointment and discovered that their billing department is much more strict about negotiating a payment plan for the medical bills.
Water Main Break: In February 2019, there was a water main break under Darcy's home. She was losing thousands of gallons of water a day and didn't have the funds for the repair. The entire line had to be replaced. So help stepped in and gave her a private loan until the end of May.
Another Mass Identified in Axilla: Her Medical Oncologist found a mass high in Darcy's right axilla (armpit). She's scheduled to go to Johns Hopkins next week to have this evaluated in radiology and get another mammogram.
Pandemic COVID-19 Closures: As we were gathering information to begin this fundraising campaign, we didn't think Aunt Darcy's situation would become any worse until the outbreak of the Pandemic COVID-19 struck the United States. Like so many of you, the company that Darcy works for had to close their doors indefinitely. She had to use the rest of her accrued sick leave to keep her medical insurance for the next week. Beginning next week they are going to give her 65% of her hourly wage (23 hours) and will defer her medical insurance premiums until the COVID-19 threat has been abolished. When Darcy's workplace re-opens she will not get her first paychecks as her medical premiums will be deducted until they are paid off.
Darcy's cancer has taken a toll on her body and the financial burden has caused her additional stress. It's been a slow snowball affect over 2 years to get to this point. She's about to lose everything that she loves and has worked so hard for over the years. She had to put her beloved horse that she's had for 16 years up for sale to help pay the bills. I feel so bad that she had to make the decision to offer such a special part of her family. Her horse was her life. It's just sad.
No contribution is too small and will help cover past and current medical bills, medications, vaccinations; due and overdue expenses, purchase groceries, etc.
Thank you for considering making a donation to help Aunt Darcy. If you’re unable to donate your prayers would be greatly appreaciated. Also I'd like to ask everyone to share, share, share this page on all of your social media networks . If you'd like you may always join the team fundraiser. Stay safe and practice social distancing.
With the deepest of gratitude for your generous support,
The Friends and Family of Darcy Miller
Equipo de recaudación de fondos: Help Darcy with 2 Types of Cancer (3)
Peyton French
Organizador
Mattawan, MI
Darcy Miller
Beneficiario
Ailea Koxlien
Team member
Jo Ann Martello
Team member