My mom has been battling stage 3 pancreatic cancer and 2 days ago, she completed her 4th chemotherapy session. She has 2 more to go before they assess it to remove the tumor.
She was diagnosed on November 28, 2023. She began chemotherapy December 26, 2023 and was admitted to the emergency room later that day from complications. She was discharged December 29, 2023 and my family came down to Florida on December 30, 2023.
On her birthday, January 2, 2024, after her follow-up meeting with her oncologist. She was feeling defeated about how things had been happening since her diagnosis. She vocalized no desire to live in front of us (including my 12 year old daughter (her only grandchild)).
My family (my spouse, daughter & myself), at the suggestion of my spouse made the commitment to be her ongoing support system. This is so she could make whatever decision she wanted regarding how she chooses to proceed with her diagnosis.
I personally committed to split time between our 2 bedroom home in Durham, North Carolina & her 1 bedroom apartment in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to make sure we could commit to her health treatment planned as it began taking effect on December 26, 2023.
We did not request anything from anybody and agreed to take on the additional financial burdens it would place on us to fulfill this commitment, (despite knowing we weren't in the financial situation to do so).
We arranged things so my spouse and daughter could return to school in NC on January 8th. I stayed back with my mom for that chemo week. Since I'm a business owner with time flexibility, I would make the trips and stay with my mom throughout the treatment windows in Florida.
This agreement means renting a car for an one-way trip to North Carolina or Florida weekly (a $200-275 expense & 11-14 hours of travel time per trip). The first time we brought her up to NC ever, my spouse drove our car down to get us and then shared in the responsibility of driving back to NC. It cost us $250 in fuel and food for the trip. We realized it gave my mom & I more flexibility in travel days, saved on time spent on the road, and cost the same to just rent a car (Chevrolet Malibu) for each trip.
This agreement meant now sourcing food with all my mom's health dietary restrictions (from having a gastric sleeve) & her diagnosis dietary restrictions for 2 households. As well as me preparing most meals for both homes while I'm in and away from NC. In addition, replacing gluten with gluten-free alternatives in the diet. (A lot more coconut and almond based supplies). Cooking meals for a family of four that works and can be considered Keto-friendly and cancer friendly and while trying to stay under a budget of $300-$350 monthly.
Since we've implemented this plan to be her support system, all hell has broken loose in our lives. (My mom calls it just life lifing though).
On Martin Luther King weekend, began a school district wide issue in my Daughter's school system. Different staff began protesting and calling out of work (which we personally support their stances) due to significant pay discrepancies being communicated.
This immediately meant unreliable transportation for my daughter getting to & from school 25+ minutes away. My spouse teaches in a different school system 20 minutes in the opposite direction of my daughter's school, and we only have one car. Since she started middle school this year, their school school arrival times are the same. But her bus pick-up time solved the problem there. So there is now an ongoing possibility of him being late to work at his school daily.
On our first trip back down for treatment, it went perfect with the rental, until I realized after returning the rental car that I had lost my business cellphone inside of the rental car. (It hasn't been found by Budget's staff during cleaning and the car had already been rented out again less than 2 hours after being dropped off.) So I still have to pay to get that phone replaced.
This is compiled on top of this being my businesses' slow season and having no reserves to catch the $950 overhead in monthly expenses that comes from inventory space, business insurance, & hosting email domains, office assistant services & website. We only one future booking on the calendar and it's for a new build. January there was only $900 made. $300 had to go towards having to subrent out the job because it over lapped with chemo treatment and would cost twice as much to keep in-house with temp staff. $150 went towards repaying our transaction based capital funding loan from Shopify. $120 went towards getting 2 items of inventory for the second booking.
So I borrowed funds from something I couldn't afford to take from just to keep all of our inventory spaces secured.
My Chase credit card is over the limit by $140 and a payment is due today. My secure loan payment with Navy Federal is also due today and I don't have any of it. My business insurance payment of $200 is due tomorrow, and I don't have that either.
And the difference in the cost for our last car rental to come down for chemo week is still due back to the card I used for it. And I have to pay 200 for the car rental to go back up to NC Monday.
Then back in NC, this week on Tuesday, our only car's engine light came on. It was taken into our dealership on Wednesday morning to find out why. That diagnostic end up costing $250. We finally got answers Friday afternoon. Our car has 139k miles on it, and we're being told the engine needs to be replaced. It has been quoted $8k to have a used engine put into it or over $12k to have a new engine with a lifetime warranty put into our 2016 Chevrolet Cruze premier.
This car gets everyone to school and has been how my spouse has been supplementing his income working for the school system and parks & rec by doing Shipt. So now income has been reduced even more and expenses have drastically increased more.
MY business first official rental booking for this year took place yesterday, and that was supposed to be able to be delivered using our car. Since it's still in the shop, we had to book a last-minute $200 car rental for my spouse and daughter to fulfill the booking delivery yesterday and to be able to go back to do the rental booking pick-up today.
Emergency fund is pretty much exhausted after this week and the savings, too. Then today, with a little downtime, I learn that all my email payments were due on MLK weekend. This resulted in 5 email domains (3 important ones needed for tax filings) to be canceled by godaddy after 2 weeks of missing the payment notifications. I've had the email plan for almost 10 years, and it initially only cost me $14/month for all 5 emails. But because it was canceled and the package no longer exists, it cost me $29/month to have them reactivate and restore the 3 important emails or over $70/month to get them all reactivated. I only activated the 3 and paid it up until April for $59, so I don't miss its before filing taxes.
This week in Florida, my mom's cancer treatment visits started charging her a copay. Due to an error that recently took place on the backend by her health insurance. It's taking longer to resolve it with then despite them already seeing that it'san error in their coordination of benefits process. This week alone, we had to pay $325 in co-pays just to avoid the chemotherapy and white blood cell visits at the oncologist from being canceled by their office. The error is still causing a previous $200 outstanding balance to reflect on her account.
TODAY, it all became too much to hold in any longer. I have never had to face this many trials all at once while still having ongoing ones coming my way. My heart, mind & spirit is heavy right now. I need GOD to do something supernatural for my family in this season. In a way, only God can show up. I'm not broken. My faith isn't shaken. We're not going back on our commitment. Cancer won't defeat my family! We're breaking so many generational cycles right now. Cancer was just the catalyst to expedite the process.
