At risk with no insurance
by Shushan
(San Francisco, CA)
When my mother's doctor called me at night to tell me that she was going to have a colon cancer surgery, my life was turned upside down. What? What the heck was colon cancer? Where did it come from?
Thousands of questions were racing in my mind, but I had no answers to them.
After the surgery and post surgery complications, after the chemotherapy and its devastating side effects, my mother got better. We were told that the average survival rate was five years. Then she could call herself a survivor. My mother had regular colonoscopies, all clear of cancer. Then this summer just two months before the five year survival margin, my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer again.
My mother had to go under the knife again.
This time she was in stage I and chemo was not needed.The stress caused by these two surgeries was tremendous.
My husband and I also had colonoscopy.
We both had cancerous polyps removed during the procedure. We are due for our third colonoscopy procedure since then, but can not afford it anymore. We are a low income family with no medical insurance. I have no job. My husband is the only provider and we barely meeting the ends. We both are at risk and don't know where to turn for help.
