John & Samantha Palombaro, Apalachin, NY

2015 Binghamton Fund

John was diagnosed with Melanoma at the age of 33 (3 years ago). It started with a spot on the bottom of his foot and traveled to several lymph nodes in his lower body. Since that time, John has undergone several surgeries to remove cancerous lymph nodes and has been doing chemotherapy maintenance treatments. During this time period, John was able to work and maintain a normal life style. Unfortunately, at the end of this past summer he started having back pain. Testing revealed a cancerous lymph node in his neck pushing on nerves to his back, causing tremendous pain and keeping out of work. The tumor is inoperable because it is wrapped around too many nerves. The only course of treatment is aggressive and debilitating chemotherapy aimed at shrinking the tumor to alleviate the pain. With the cancer attacking the Lymph system, his body is not able to naturally rid itself of fluids resulting in fluid build-up around his lungs which required surgery that was completed last week. In addition to dealing with John’s cancer battle and the trips back and forth to the hospital, last year they lost their unborn child at 23 weeks. Gratefully, Samantha is pregnant again and doing well. She has been working hard to maintain a level of income as well as take care of John and herself trying not to risk complications to the pregnancy. John is the main income for their family and they do not know how much longer he will be out of work.  A donation from the Binghamton Fund covered 4 months of mortgage payments.