Susanne's daughter’s fight with Cancer and EDS.

Our dear friend to so many around the world, Susanne Becker Cooper needs not only thoughts, prayers, good healing vibes, and kindness from the universe, but serious financial support from all of us for her daughter’s unanticipated and urgent medical care. Susanne is facing an enormous challenge as her adult daughter has been diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. This is on top of her rare connective tissue disease which has progressed and presents massive complications.

Susanne shared that the hardest part of this journey so far, is her daughter’s neuro-atypical brain – “she researches everything thoroughly, spending hours reading medical articles and clinical trial results, plus anecdotal evidence from survivors, leaving her with unanswered questions, and resulting in negative certainty. She has intense anger that comes from her fear about all that afflicts her. Medical providers have much too often dismissed her concerns in the past. The universe has not been kind to this soul who loves animals and watches out for the smallest of creatures. She has immense artistic talent when she feels decent enough to see her inspiration and put it on canvas in her own unique style. She is pained and angered by the inhumanity she sees, the disregard for those who don’t “fit” and the harm we do to the natural world and the environment.”

Susanne knows the range of emotions – yet she can only sit in the lobby for long hours at the medical center waiting rooms, with “Wee” her daughter’s service dog who is keeps a laser focused watch at the closed doors, behind which his person has been taken.

Medical-related costs have already begun to escalate quickly, and her daughter has not yet had surgery. This is a journey of a broken health care system that so many of us know too well.

Her daughter’s housing isn’t sustainable because after the breast cancer surgery, she will be facing many months of ongoing treatment procedures and possibly surgery for her advancing EDS issues. She won’t be able to live many hours away from a major medical center, with no support, as she does now.

Many in Susanne’s Peace Corps family, her international family from election work and her friends in disaster emergency management over the past 35 years have asked how they can help.

So, we collectively answered the call.

Please find it in your heart to help Susanne with her daughter’s mounting medical bills, additional living expenses and cross-country travel for Susanne, plus taking care of “Wee” as her daughter deals with her breast cancer surgery and recovery, plus likely surgery for EDS-related issues. Please make a generous donation today. Any amount will be welcomed with deep gratitude! Also, please share this page with your own network as Susanne has a long, arduous and uncertain road ahead of her.

With gratitude,

All of US