Family Facing Foreclosure After Unexpected Illness

EAST HAMPTON, NY — A family is facing foreclosure after an unexpected illness left them struggling.

A GoFundMe page, "Unexpected Illness — Our Family Needs Your Help," was created by Deidre Luisi Hands.

"During the summer of 2017, at around the same time we closed on the house, we had worked many years to attain, my husband John began to feel unsteady on his feet," she said. "After a tumultuous year, filled with medical tests, surgeries, pneumonia, and hospitalizations we have learned that he not only had had several strokes and a damaged heart wall, but that he has non-operable, Stage IV lung cancer, and only one year to live."

Her husband, she said, is still is trying to work and is not giving up, but he is getting weaker, and is wracked with stress about losing the house because of the loss of his income.

Their son is on active duty and helping as much as he can, but is stationed far away; although just back from deployment, he is getting ready for another, she said.

"We are now facing active foreclosure on the house that took us a lifetime to buy, and I am trying every means possible to find a way to stop this. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't give up on anything, and we will fight this in any way possible," Hands said.

Their family, she said, needs financial assistance to cover lost income.

In addition, Hands said, she is hoping to gain income by renting out a small apartment in the garage, but to do so, she needs contractors, carpenters, and plumbers to help complete the work.

Her vehicle, Hands said, is in such bad shape that she can’t drive her husband to Stony Brook University Hospital or Memorial Sloan Kettering for her husband's treatments; she is hoping to purchase a used car.

"Our story began in the summer of 2017. My husband began to be unsteady on his feet . . He had knee surgery, but there was only a little improvement," she said.

"Summer of 2017 was a slow time in the construction business out here, so he did little jobs and waited until September to go back to construction with the contractor he was working under, but his mobility was getting worse," she said.

Unable to climb scaffolding or ladders, or lift heavy weights, her husband was out of work until the end of January, 2018.

In early April he was diagnosed with having had a stroke, Hands said.

"One week went by, he went to work in the morning, climbed a ladder, felt so dizzy and disoriented that he climbed down and came home. A few hours later a doctor called and told him to go the hospital immediately based on the results of the tests. He was taken by ambulance to Stony Brook, and diagnosed with another stroke," she said.

"A further brain angiogram was performed which indicated small bleeding and scar tissue from a stroke that they now feel he had had back in the summer of 2017, meaning he had had three strokes in 10 months. They have also found that he has a damaged heart wall, so cardiology became involved. He was told he could no longer do construction work, and that is all he knows. He rested, took his meds and vitamins and felt well enough to try and work as a handyman, but on his second day on the job he blacked out and fell. With a cracked a rib and a punctured a lung, he went to hospital for three days, but within 24 hours of his release, he was readmitted for a week, as he had contracted pneumonia," she said.

Chest X-rays revealed a mass was spotted in his lung; a biopsy showed non-small cell lung cancer, Hands said.

"We now know, after PET scan and PDL1 testing that John has Stage 4 cancer that is non-operable, with a year to live. If anyone can see it in their heart to help us in our time of need, we will not forget it, and will be forever grateful," she said.

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Photo courtesy GoFundMe.