Turning 30 is a major milestone in many young adults’ lives. For Esther Ashford, celebrating her 30th birthday this October meant she was still alive.
Ashford was diagnosed with stage 2B cervical cancer at the beginning of the year, prompting her to return home to the U.S. with her two children — 10-year-old daughter Elisha and 7-year-old son E.J. — after more than a decade living in the Philippines.
In March, her parents living in Milpitas convinced Ashford, a single mother who had recently earned her registered nursing license abroad, that flying back home would help provide support and a fresh medical perspective, especially since earlier routine health check-ups overseas, including ultrasounds and pap smears, had failed to detect a mass growing inside her body — despite her urging that something was wrong.
But that new home address didn’t help ease the toll of undergoing months of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.
In fact, Ashford’s simple daily necessities — travel, nutrition, household chores, encouragement — proved to be some of the most challenging roadblocks to surmount. She feared becoming a financial or emotional burden for her aging parents, working siblings and young children while trying to manage her daily appointments.
“Going through cancer alone is really hard, because it just drains you — emotionally and physically,” Ashford said, explaining that she felt too embarrassed to share her diagnosis beyond immediate family members, fearing stigma and judgment that she said are common in Filipino culture surrounding health. “It’s already hard on you as the patient, but I also felt really guilty that I wasn’t healthy enough for my family. I did not want them to see me at my lowest point.”
Fortunately, one of the nurses at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center connected Ashford with Pink Ribbon Good, a Los Altos-based nonprofit dedicated to covering families’ basic needs during cancer treatments in the South Bay.
Pink Ribbon Good provides rides, meals, house cleaning kits, peer support and medical education for any Santa Clara County resident going through treatment for breast and gynecological cancer — all free of charge.
Once patients fill out a simple form to confirm their diagnosis from a medical professional, all of the program onboarding and scheduling is handled in the organization’s Ohio HQ offices — virtually and over the phone for the West Coast patients.
For Ashford, the nonprofit’s help scheduling daily cab rides to and from the clinic — automatically hailed with the press of a button through the Uber Health app — was the most tangible assistance. The free, reliable resource allowed her father and brother to stop worrying about missing shifts at work, which already provided barely enough income to scrape by living in the Bay Area.
Pink Ribbon Good also delivered pre-packaged meals from Fresh and Lean to Ashford’s doorstep three times a week, which she said were vital on the days when she was too physically tired to cook, or feeling too sick to even stomach the idea of food.
“During treatment, I would sleep the whole day because the chemo treatments were really strong and the side effects were even worse,” Ashford said. “It got so bad that I couldn’t really do anything other than rest.”
Once those basic necessities were covered, she said she was finally free to focus on healing.
“It was really perfect timing when a nurse told me about Pink Ribbon Good, because I would be in big debt right now if it weren’t for them,” Ashford said. In addition to easing financial strains, she is grateful that the nonprofit “gave me motivation, but also hope that I would get better and the knowledge that people do care.”
Pink Ribbon Good is seeking Wish Book donations to continue to support more clients like Ashford.
Pam Klaus, Pink Ribbon Good’s regional director for the Bay Area, said the easy part is working with their network of social workers, nurse navigators and physicians to connect patients who are struggling to get to their treatments or even just keeping up with everyday needs at home with these services.
In addition to empowering cancer patients during such an emotionally difficult time, the nonprofit’s main goal is to improve medical outcomes by making it as easy as possible for them to successfully complete treatment.
“People may want to be independent and not have to count on their spouse, relatives, neighbors and friends all the time for everything,” Klaus said, adding that patients at times don’t feel like they deserve or are worthy of receiving help. “For some, they might look at it as a convenience, but for others, it can really mean the difference between choosing between medicine or food.”
The challenging part of the job, Klaus said, is figuring out how to continue raising awareness of their organization and funding its programs, which have continued to expand since launching in the Bay Area in late 2019.
Klaus said Pink Ribbon Good worked with 470 new survivors within the first eight months of 2023 alone — onboarding 31% more people than the same time last year. On average, the costs of these services add up to nearly $1,000 per client — 74% of whom are low-income.
While nearly all referrals are initiated by health care facilities, Klaus said anyone can directly refer a friend or family member who is struggling.
“We really focus on helping the patient today with their immediate needs,” she said, explaining how other cancer organizations are often focused on more long-term issues like insurance paperwork, wigs and prosthetics. Even for people like Esther who intimately know the ins and outs of the medical field, “they need just a little extra help getting to treatments and getting through daily life.”
While Ashford was once too embarrassed to share her life-changing cancer diagnosis with others, now that she’s in recovery, she said she feels blessed for the support she received from Pink Ribbon Good while fighting for a second chance at life.
“If other people are in this situation, I want them to know they’re not alone,” Ashford said. “I know it’s really, really hard, but even if you think that you have no one supporting you, just be strong during that moment and find hope.”
THE WISH BOOK SERIES
Wish Book is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization operated by The Mercury News. Since 1983, Wish Book has been producing series of stories during the holiday season that highlight the wishes of those in need and invite readers to help fulfill them.
WISH
Donations to Pink Ribbon Good will help support up to 35 clients with free services, including health meals, roundtrip rides to treatments, and other activities. Goal: $25,000
HOW TO GIVE
Donate at wishbook.mercurynews.com/donate or mail in this form.
ONLINE EXTRA
Read other Wish Book stories, view photos and video at wishbook.mercurynews.com.