Help Janice move closer to cancer specialist
In September of 2019, my mother, Janice Kern, was diagnosed with endometrial cancer.
If you know or have met my mother, you'll know that she is a strong willed, compassionate, service driven human being. She's the mother of three daughters who she raised on her own, and now the grandmother of (soon to be) 6 grandchildren. She spent most of her life helping people -- working for the Helpline House in Aiken, SC trying to get women off of welfare. Assisting those with drug and alcohol addictions. Rescuing and rehoming dozens of dogs. In 2000 she was t-boned at an intersection which resulted in her being trapped in the vehicle and having multiple surgeries on her leg. The accident left her permanently disabled and on bed rest and in a wheelchair for years. By 2012, with the help of her two grandsons who were learning to walk themselves, she had started walking again but with considerable pain due to the surgeries and metal hardware in her leg. It's 2019 and she still has trouble walking, thus has remained on permanent disability. Despite these challenges, she's just as active in the community as ever -- she frequently works with homeless service projects to help reunite the homeless with their families, she attends town halls and meetings around human rights, and does her best to continue to campaign and champion for what is right.
For 18 months, she visited multiple doctors and clinics in search of answers for symptoms she'd been having that were progressively getting worse. Unfortunately, she lives in a rural community and each of these visits required a trek of 60+ miles to doctors offices, clinics, labs, and more. Because the services available in the area were so far away and so few, the diagnosis was missed initially. After receiving the diagnosis, the women's clinic told her that in order to effectively treat it, she'd need to move to a place with more services. They said that there wasn't a single gynecologic oncology surgeon within 100 miles.
Because of her permanent disability and now cancer diagnosis, she doesn't have the funds or resources to effectively re-locate currently which is delaying treating her endometrial cancer. Please help Janice get to a place where she can receive adequate treatment and continue to be around for her daughters, grand kids, and hundreds of other people who rely on her!