The Chatfield Family needs support through cancer reoccurrence, long term care needs, and mounting medical bills. We are raising funds to help pay for medical debts and current and future treatments and procedures.

We are raising funds to help pay for medical debts and current and future treatments and procedures. In June of 2022, at 35 years old I was diagnosed with stage IIIB adenocarcinoma of the rectum. As some of our family and close friends know, the week after informing my manager of this I was let go from my job due to cited cash flow issues at the healthcare company. I held the insurance for my family and we had to pay for 6 months of COBRA in order to receive the care I needed. Within a few months months time, due to scans, recommended fertility treatments, prep procedures, beginning radiation/chemo treatments, and COBRA payments we had about 20,000 worth of bills. We were able to stay afloat through that year but the following year I had to have a proctectomy with permanent colostomy, and I had major complications leaving me bedridden in immense pain for about 3 months. For the following 9 months I went to 2-3 medical appointments per week in various physical therapy regimens, acupuncture, and medical massage therapies to reduce the intensity of my now chronic coccygeal pain and regain weight bearing movements and activities to complete daily functions consistently. I was hopeful I would be able to begin working part time at the end of it and be back to our normal dual income situation. However, in May of this year (2024) a scan showed a lung nodule that was cancerous and needed to be surgically removed, resulting in of course more physical setbacks thwarting my plans to try to begin working again. My medical team then decided since the diagnosis was now stage 4 to set me up on a second course of chemotherapy for the next 6 months (12 biweekly treatments) which will leave me in bed for about 5/6 days every 2 weeks and reduced capacity more days as the chemo treatments increase. This has been devastating psychologically for me as well as my family. With high medical bills and an inability to reenter the workforce we are now at an impasse, and with encouragement from the hospitals social worker and therapists decided to open up to all forms of support and help from our family and friends.

People who know me know I tend to be an intensely private person and hate having to talk about all of my vulnerabilities and issues- I probably should have asked for help sooner but I truly thought I could find a way out of this myself. We did get one embryo from our fertility treatments, but were then told we would need a surrogate to use it- if by chance we have a surplus of donations we would put the money towards that or if we decide to not go that route we would see how we could help others.

Examples any money raised will go towards include:

• outstanding fertility clinic bill
• current hospital bills
• Embryo storage fees
• chemotherapy
• physical therapy
• chronic pain management
• hormone therapy
• medications
• hair loss solutions and wigs
• childcare
• traveling expenses
• upcoming quarterly scans, procedures, and treatments
• counseling to treat my major depressive disorder and who knows what else mentally

Our social worker told us there organizations that may offer help but they can be hard to find and have short windows of applications- she recommended asking others who may be in the field, or know others who are, if they know of any organizations that help people like us. If you know of any organizations to share our story with or that help people like us, please let us know. We greatly appreciate anyone spreading our message to help.