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​CANCER CHRONICLES

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Money, money, money, monnnnney....MONEY!

8/21/2017

1 Comment

 
You always hear the saying, "Money doesn't buy happiness"....I feel like this can be debated heavily. Money may not buy the actual happiness, but it buys food, clothes, pays the bills, and quite frankly buys your health, amongst many other things. 

As you may or may not of read, here is the timeline of what went down:
~decided to move to Port A to help myself financially since Austin is ridiculous in cost of living and to financially help my parents (now that plan obviously went the complete opposite way)
7-19~ Interviewed in Corpus and got the job on the spot
7-27~ finally heard from CCISD HR to make it official and set my signing date (scheduled for 8/2 when I was heading down to Corpus)
7-27~ since it was finally official I didn't want LT to be waiting on me to fill my spot so late in the summer so I turned in my resignation, as well as put in my notice to my apartment 
7-29~ my health was just getting worse and worse by the minute and I couldn't handle it anymore so went to the ER, they then sent me to hospital by ambulance and the journey began
8-1~ LT filled my spot after conducting interviews so no matter if I tried to go back I couldn't unfortunately (obviously no ones fault by any means)
8-2~ lab results came back diagnosing me with Cancer (this was also my CCISD scheduled day to sign my contract....IE I never got to sign with my new district leaving me now resigned from LT and jobless...not to mention no insurance after this month because of the above)

The financial side you may not be able to envision or understand:
~I obviously will not have insurance since I am jobless through this huge medical bill time of need 
~we have looked into Cobra which seems to be the only option given my circumstances, but if you know anything about Cobra it is super expensive (even though obviously way less than being completely insurance-less) and will cost me about $600 a month (not sure how they expect that when you are unemployed) and this doesn't cover labs, prescriptions, parking at the drs which you have to pay for every time...and many more expenses
~we also found out my apartment complex will not let me break my lease early so I will essentially be paying for my apartment for 2 months of me not living there...another $2,400 cost I obviously don't have income to pay for
~we are trying to sell my just now 2 year old car so I won't have to pay my car payment and insurance since I won't be able to drive much and/or can use either of my parents vehicles
~not to mention, since I graduated with my masters in May all my loans will be coming out of deferment for undergrad and grad school so I'll have to start paying those lovely things again....Ellen, seriously, where are you when I need you?! : )

​We initially didn't know how much to set the GoFundMe for since we really didn't know what to expect. We have now raised it since the bills are starting to roll in. Between the ER, ambulance, 7 day hotel/hospital stay, CT scans times a million, biopsies, X-rays....you get the picture we are now just trying to chip away at them one by one. And of course, this is just the beginning of more to come and there is talk I may be having a lovely extended stay at hotel Seton in another week or two....stay tuned : )


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1 Comment
Christina
9/3/2017 08:01:17 pm

Get on the student aid.ed.gov website and you can apply for an income based repayment plan. That should make your monthly student loan payments $0 because you currently have no income. But each month you have a $0 payment still go towards your 5 years or 10 years towards loan forgiveness. Hopefully that will help a little!

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    "You either get bitter or you get better. It's that simple. You either take what's been dealt to you and allow it to make you a better person, or you allow it to tear you down. The choice does not belong to fate, it belongs to you."
    ​~Josh Shipp

             

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    When Cancer Comes a Knockin'

    Timeline

    On August 2, 2017, Brianna was diagnosed with Mediastinal Large B-Cell Lymphoma. Beginning Monday, August 14, 2017, Brianna will begin chemotherapy treatments. She will be commuting to Austin for 18 weeks to receive treatments. This site is set up as a donation page to help Brianna and her family cover medical costs and living expenses, as well as a one stop shop to get updates on how chemo is going and even buy a shirt or two in support!

    UPDATE:
    After getting her final PET scan to confirm the aggressive chemo did it's job, we got the news that it hadn't and that the tumor was still active when it shouldn't of been. Brianna is now undergoing radiation for 5 weeks, everyday in Austin. 


    UPDATE March 2018:
    Brianna begin having the same cancer symptoms as she did this past summer during spring break, except more painful this time. She was sent to get a CT scan which showed her cancer had returned. She then met with her oncologist who planned the next steps which include to do more chemo (a differnt regimen this time) followed by a stem cell transplant. 
    She thought she was done....she was done.....and now she is having to start the cancer journey all over again...including losing her hair that had just start growing back.


    UPDATE
    END OF MARCH - JUNE 25th
    ​(at the moment....things have yet to even begin apparently.)

    If I didn't feel like I was really dying or truly out of options to live....I do now. Remember  I was basically on our plan F and everything was just getting worse instead of better. I really thought I was done these last couple weeks and being in the hospital for another little week vacay. I finally updated by blog since so many people were asking, so you can read the detailed updates.

    October 2018 Update:
    Insurance has finally approved all of the CAR-T procedure and I will be getting my T-Cells retrieved from my body next week. (Oct 10th if all goes as planned)


    MARCH 2019
    The first post CAR-T pet scan showed the main mass has shrunk in size, even though still active. Hopefully, the CAR-T will continue to work its magic over the next few months before the next scan.


    To donate to Brianna's GoFundMe page, please make sure the donation is made on the GoFundMe Page found here:
    ​
     https://www.gofundme.com/teambonnet
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