Jen's Battle

People fall through the cracks all the time. God help you if you have multiple surgeries and your employer provides you little or no benefits. At one time or another you may have to deal with EI or some other agency. Sometimes it may seem subjective whether they help you or not. Most often not. That’s exactly what happened with Jen Leblanc in her battle with cancer. Let’s help her so she doesn’t have to return to work while going through chemotherapy treatments.

Jen’s story…

Jen went in for routine hernia surgery August 10, 2022 and the surgery went fine. EI was set up to start for her in the next few weeks during her recovery period. During the surgery the doctors noticed that her liver was enlarged and a spot on her lungs. They ordered a CT/PET and other scans for the coming weeks. Jen recovered from the hernia surgery and went back to work Oct 2nd using 7 of the 15 weeks provided to her through EI.

On December 8th, 2022, Jen was diagnosed with stage 4 Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and the doctor’s recommended she take 6 months off while going through chemotherapy treatments.

On December 18th, 2022, EI extended sickness benefits for cancer patients to 26 weeks for the exact reason that 15 weeks is not enough time for treatment and recovery, let alone having another surgery done. Though Jen hadn’t started her treatments yet and this was a separate incident from the hernia operation, EI would not allow her to open a new claim due to not getting the required 600 hours, nor would they extend the existing claim to 26 weeks even though it was for cancer and she hadn’t started treatment yet. As a result when Jen started her treatment mid December, her EI was mostly used up and ended February 14th, 2023. Even the help of Kevin and Cindy Lamoureux who provided a letter to EI on Jen’s behalf has not persuaded EI to extend Jen’s benefits. Time is up, she needs help now. We’re asking for $5,874 to help extend Jen’s payments to what would have been the end of the 26 week period. Thank you everyone, let’s get this done.