~ SW
SW is a 36-year-old patient diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer in August 2012. At the time of diagnosis, she was 22 weeks pregnant. She started chemotherapy during her pregnancy and her baby was delivered at 31 weeks. She then had a full course of chemo/radiation, which was completed in December 2012. On January 9 she saw Dr. Dodge on an urgent basis and was found to have recurrence of her disease. At the time of writing this request, the patient was admitted to Toronto General Hospital for a surgical procedure called anterior exenteration. This surgery removes the bladder, urethra, vagina, uterus, and all tissues lateral to the pelvic sidewall. SW is married and has three children. Her husband works in the car manufacturing industry as a moulder, but at this time he is on sick leave, due to anxiety caused by this highly stressful situation. He is currently on Employment Insurance Sick Benefits, thus is he only receiving 55% of his income. Before her diagnosis, SW worked as a waitress and she is now on maternity leave, also receiving Employment Insurance Benefits. She too is only receiving 55% of her salary. At this time this family is not able to meet their regular household expenses. We asked the fund to cover one month of SW’s mortgage ($1,300) and an extra $700 to cover the costs of transportation to and from the hospital plus to assist with general household expenses during this stressful time. The full request was $2,000.
~ BS
BS is a 54-year-old cervical cancer patient who was diagnosed in 2011. She underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatment plus brachytherapy, which was completed in April 2012. Unfortunately, she had a stroke in June 2012 and an ultrasound at that time revealed liver and lung metastases. She has recently recommenced chemotherapy. BS is married and has five children ranging in ages from 19 to 37. Before the diagnosis she worked as a personal support worker. Her husband worked as a roofer, but is now on sick leave to an injury. This family has experienced significant financial stress due to the illness. She is currently waiting for her long-term disability benefits to start, so at this time their family income is minimal and she is unable to meet all her financial commitments. We asked for funds to cover two months of her mortgage payments ($1,000) plus two months of their heating and hydro bills ($600) to help reduce their financial strain during this difficult time. The total gift was $1,600.
~ LT
LT is a 34 year old cervical cancer patient, diagnosed in October 2012. She underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatment plus brachytherapy. Her treatment is now complete. LT is married and has two daughters, ages 8 and 3. Before her diagnosis, she worked in a nail salon and also tried to be with her children full-time. Her husband works in a factory. LT and her family have experienced significant financial stress, due to the illness. She had been unable to work at all during that time and they were solely reliant on her spouse’s income. His hourly rate is $16.00. We asked the fund to assist this family by paying for one month of their mortgage. This request took place just before Christmas and the gift of $1,200 allowed the patient extra funds to buy gifts for her children for Christmas.
~ RP
RP is a 28-year-old cervical cancer patient, diagnosed in September 2013. She had surgery in October and fortunately the surgeon was able to transpose her ovaries and they were saved. She is married and they had not started a family yet. RP underwent egg harvesting on November 5, 2013 in the hope of having children at a later date. This process cost $5,700. RP and her husband work as cooks at a resort in Muskoka. They both earn about $35,000 each but now that RP cannot work she is on Employment Insurance Sick benefits and at this time she earns considerably less. She is about to undergo 5 weeks of radiation plus chemotherapy treatment so she will have to be in Toronto during that time. Her spouse must continue to work and all her family are in Equator so she will be quite alone here. RP and her spouse went to see the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Lodge and this made RP extremely anxious. She learnt she would have to share a room and typically the residents at the Lodge are elderly. She was very unnerved by this and upset and felt she was unable to stay there so she decided to commute daily. As we spoke about the logistics of that she finally agreed that a commute like that would be impossibly difficult. After doing some research, I located a very small B+B close to the hospital that would give her a monthly rate of $1,500. She plans to stay there and her spouse will come to the city on his days off. We recommended a financial gift of $1,000 for this patient to help cover a) her lost salary while on E.I. Benefits, b) some of the cost of the egg harvesting, c) her transportation to and from Muskoka, and d) some of her accommodation expenses while undergoing treatment.
~ SM
SM is a newly diagnosed 42-year-old patient with stage IV disease and lung and liver mets. There is also some invasion of the bowel and she required an ileostomy. She was admitted to PM from April 7 to May 2 for pain management and she is now undergoing daily radiation and weekly chemotherapy as an outpatient. SM is married and she and her spouse own their home. They have two children: an 8-year-old and a 12 –year-old. Her spouse works for a courier company and she works as an administrator at a museum. They have a very large support network of friends and family and the children have been well looked after. During her lengthy admission to PM her spouse was here daily. Fortunately, his employer has been flexible but he is now receiving a significantly reduced salary. SM is also on a sick leave and has had no pay since March 3. She is waiting for her Employment Insurance Sick Benefits to start. We recommended a financial gift of $1,700 for this patient to help cover one months’ worth of her mortgage ($1,300) and to also help with the very high parking costs incurred during her admission. Clearly this family was struggling financially due to the diagnosis and treatment of her advanced disease and this financial gift eased some of their stress during that very difficult time.
~ SA
SA is a 38-year cervical cancer patient, diagnosed in September 2012. She had chemo and radiation treatment but relapsed with mets in May, 2013. She then went on clinical trials but progressed in February 2014 and again in July, 2014. She had a second round of radiation for metastasis and was about to recommence chemotherapy but she went into a pain crisis in September and was admitted to the Princess Margaret on September 15. During this admission her left leg became severely edematous and septic, which necessitated an urgent transfer to Mount Sinai ICU. That night they did a debridement surgery from her ankle to her upper thigh. She survived the surgery and returned to Princess Margaret with a VAC wound care system in place. Dressing changes were truly excruciating for her and after two of them she was transferred to TGH to have the procedure done in the OR under anesthetic. It is unclear if SA will ever be able to return home from the hospital. SA came with her family to the U.S. as a child from Pakistan. She married and returned with her husband to Pakistan where she studied medicine. She separated from her spouse and returned to Canada and completed her licensing exams here. She was looking for a residency position when she was diagnosed. SA has two children, a daughter who is seven and a son who is 12. She is divorced from her spouse. She was sexually, emotionally and physically abused by her former husband. There have been custody battles and her former husband attempted to kidnap her son. She has had a number of restraining orders placed on him and, fortunately, for the last year there has been no contact. SA has kept her disease a secret from her ex-husband for fear that he would try to use the cancer as a reason to take the children from her. As such, she never accessed the provincial disability program and has remained on general welfare. She was worried that if he knew she was on disability benefits it would work in his favour to claim custody of the children. With this very limited income she has only been able to rent a basement apartment. Fortunately SA has wonderful family support. Her mother lives with them; she has two sisters, a brother, adult nieces and nephews and although they are all in the states they have traveled frequently to Toronto to care for her and the children. I told SA about the Tara Fund and asked her if there was something that would help her right now. She immediately thought of her children and said that they very much need a computer at home for school work. Apparently her children are longing for a Macbook Air. She could not think of anything else. SA could not possibly afford a new computer on her welfare allowance so this gift would be wonderful for them. We requested the cost of the computer plus some extra money to help with getting the children to the hospital and paying for parking; perhaps buying them some new clothes for winter and other incidentals that would help this family. In total we requested $2,000.