For years, I made my donation to the Family Bonds Foundation and selected Family Bonds as my charity of choice through the Amazon Smile program, never thinking that one day, I would be the one in need.

On September 23, 2021, as I slowly woke from anesthesia, I heard the dreaded words that no one ever wants to hear. “You have ovarian cancer, and you’ll need to go through chemotherapy”. The surgery I had just gone through was successful, but the tumor that had been growing inside my ovary had put it under such strain that it actually burst during the surgery, leaving behind an unknown amount of cancerous cells.

While I had very good medical insurance, I quickly found that not every part of my treatment was actually covered. Several tests were “out of network”. For example, my tumor was sent for testing to find out exactly what lifesaving chemotherapy drugs would be most effective on the cancer cells that were left behind in my body. This was obviously a very high priority, but my insurance only covered 80% of that test. Which still left me responsible for over $2600, for just that one test! Add that to the pile of mounting medical bills for other things that were either “out of network” or only partially covered by insurance, and soon I was drowning in medical debt. And all this was happening during a time when the travel industry was facing the financial devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I underwent another surgery to insert a port into my chest where the drugs would be administered during six rounds of chemotherapy. All of which was only partially covered by insurance. Each round of chemo had me sitting in a chair, hooked to an IV of steroids and toxic chemicals for over four hours. I lost my hair. I lost my eyebrows. I lost my eyelashes. I didn’t recognize the face staring back at me in the mirror. I went through excruciating bone pain. I could sleep for twelve hours and still wake up exhausted. And everything I ate tasted like metal. I tried to work as much as my body would allow. But the bills kept rolling in. Through it all, I received incredible emotional support from my family, my friends, my Travel Leaders family members across the country, and even from our vendor partners. What an enormous blessing to be surrounded by love from my work family far and wide while I went through the biggest challenge of my life.

In late March of 2022, the tests showed I was cancer-free.

In late April as I was back to work full time, rejoicing in the world once again opening up to travel, getting back to normal life, and desperately struggling to keep up with the multiple monthly medical bill payments. I received an email out of the blue from the Family Bonds Foundation. I had been nominated and chosen to receive a grant to help me with my medical debt. That grant was life-changing. There’s simply no other way to say it. My Travel Leaders family was once again there to support me. And I felt blessed beyond measure.