by Yolanda Cisneros
September 11 · 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Cachet Bar and Grill
2245 Winkler Ave
Fort Myers, FL
Minimum Donation $10
Zumba Instructor: Erika Matos
Who's Sofie?
Sofia Delilah Herrera is a beautiful 30 year old woman who was diagnosed with Stage 1, Endometrial Carcinoma, (Uterian Cancer) in late April of this year and she has anemia. She has never married and has never had children. She has been hospitalized several times and has had 3 blood transfusions among numerous other treatments and medications and doctor visits.
She had been working as a child care provider in our ho...me, for family since she graduated high school. Since she was self employed, she has no health insurance.
When research was done for insurance, she found it to be too costly for a single woman and cancer insurance was an added expense to the cost, but she was already diagnosed, so no one would insure her even if the money was there.
She applied for State Medicaid but found that to qualify, you must have a child under 18 in the home and the child and the caretaker would qualify for Medicaid, but there were no children under 18 in the home. Medicare is for Senior citizens on Social Security or for persons who are disabled, which she is not. SSI is for people over age 71...or who may qualify under certain cases thru disability too. But she is not disabled.
Added to everything else, with her being in and out of the hospital, she has not been able to work. The medical bills are astronomical, they are almost at fifty thousand and mounting and she has her basic living expenses as well and we haven't even talked surgery, yet. It is a possibility. She has been undergoing hormone treatments. Her Oncologist is trying to do everything he can to keep the possibility of having children in her future.
Apparently, this is a common cancer among women, but no one has taken it to a public level and made it known or done any large fund-raisers to have money for it, So, there is no money for assistance for women with this type of cancer, such as for instance, Susan G. Korman for women with breast cancer. They are known nationwide and do fund-raiser and there is money for that but the American Cancer Society has no help for this type of cancer among women. They said if the family could do any fund-raising to help her, that's fine. So we created "Sofie's Cause"
She is living with her mother to have someone take care of her but her mother has been unemployed for a couple of years and has health issues as well.
