Carla Russell is 51 years old. She and her husband, Kevin, have been married for 25 years, and she is the mother of three wonderful children, boys 23 and 18 years old, and a girl 16 years old. Carla has been diagnosed with stage 4 invasive lobular breast cancer. It has spread to her liver, and to her lungs. It is incurable. The goals of her treatment are to hold it back as long as possible, and to give her a good quality of life during this time. They have health insurance, but we hit the catastrophic limit for co-pays last year and expect to hit it again every year from now on with the high cost of some of the medicines, and treatments.
Carla and Kevin have been trying to complete her bucket list of taking the kids to all the lower 48 states in their camper. The only states left are Washington, Oregon and Idaho. The family likes national parks, historic sites, and cheesy tourist traps.
We have a trip scheduled for July to start in northern California so that Carla can touch base with some high school classmates. Then they will travel to Oregon, Washington and then Idaho. Their problem is the price of gas, and how it is increasing significantly. Kevin has calculated the trip thoroughly and estimates that each 50 cent increase in the price of gas pushes this trip up by $500. The trip cost has gone up by a couple of thousand dollars and has reached the point where they cannot afford to go. This will likely be the last time they can travel like this as a family because of the kids’ work and university schedules.
Stella’s Wish is providing Carla’s family with enough gift cards for gas to cover what is over their budget.
