When Gabi McCord thinks back to the months after her son was born, she remembers the exhaustion, the diapers, the nighttime feedings and then the moment her world tilted. She was only 35, barely settling into life as a new mother, when the pain she kept brushing aside turned into a diagnosis she never imagined: advanced cervical cancer. What should have been a season of first smiles and baby milestones became a blur of hospital rooms, radiation burns, chemotherapy bags and a fear that dug into every corner of her family’s life. And even now, in remission, the cost of that diagnosis financial, emotional, physical is something her family is still paying for every single day.
Before cancer, Gabi worked in insurance sales. She loved her job, her coworkers and the stability she believed she was building. But three months after giving birth, her health spiraled too fast for work to stay stable. Her job paused, then disappeared, and just like that she and her husband learned what it meant to live on one income while drowning in medical appointments. Her husband, Johnathon, who worked long trucking shifts before the diagnosis, suddenly became both sole breadwinner and full-time caregiver. He was changing diapers at dawn and sitting next to her chemo chair in the afternoons, then driving late-night routes to keep food on the table. Their life became a tightrope, and there was no safety net under it.
The hidden costs hit hardest. Breastfeeding wasn’t possible during chemo, so they switched to expensive formula $40 to $50 a can. Medical supplies, mobility equipment, repeated specialist visits and out-of-pocket fees piled up. Even with health insurance, Gabi estimates more than $20,000 vanished into cancer-related expenses during the first year. And that’s not counting what her loved ones spent. Her sister flew in and out of Houston until credit-card bills ballooned. Her cousin covered childcare, groceries and whatever gaps appeared. Every person who stepped in paid a financial price to keep the family afloat.
The physical impact didn’t end when the treatment stopped. Doctors aren’t sure if the paralysis in her legs will fully heal. She moves through the world with a wheelchair in her trunk, even though she puts on makeup and fixes her hair to blend in, hoping people won’t see how much of her life changed. Early menopause hit long before she ever prepared for it. Fatigue still shadows her mornings. She sometimes looks at her son and feels the ache of lost time the baby months she spent fighting for her life instead of holding him without pain.
Emotionally, the diagnosis tested every part of their marriage. Love didn’t disappear, but stress stretched it thin. There were arguments about money, about fear, about exhaustion. There were nights when neither of them slept, worried about whether the cancer would return or whether the next bill would be one they couldn’t pay. Marital therapy became part of survival, not luxury. And even in remission, the fear lingers quietly in follow-up scans, in new aches that spark old panic, in the question of what their future looks like now.
And yet, Gabi didn’t shrink under it. She went back to school for public health, determined to shine a light on the gaps in care she experienced herself. She wants other young mothers, women of color, and low-income families to have pathways she didn’t. She wants someone to know what chemo does to a mom’s ability to bond with her baby, how medical bills slip into every crack of your life, how survival doesn’t erase the cost.
For families like hers, the reality is simple but brutal: cancer doesn’t just hit one person. It knocks down everyone connected to them spouses, children, siblings, friends. It’s the late-night phone calls, the babysitting emergency, the unpaid leave, the debt you didn’t plan for, the guilt you can’t shake when you watch people sacrifice for you. It’s the constant math of survival, even after the doctors say the tumor is gone.
Gabi’s life today is better than it was in the worst months of treatment, but “better” doesn’t mean “back to normal.” The medical bills didn’t disappear. The nerve damage didn’t magically heal. Her career trajectory changed permanently. And her family still carries the emotional weight of having almost lost her.
Her story is a reminder of what cancer really steals the future you were planning, the routine you thought you could count on, the financial security you believed you had. And it’s a reminder of what it gives back in a different form resilience, perspective, community, a willingness to rebuild even when rebuilding feels unfair.
She survived. Her family endured. But the price didn’t end the day she rang the remission bell. It continues in small and large ways, woven into the everyday moments of their life in the kitchen where she stirs pancake batter for her toddlers, in the wheelchair tucked behind her car seat, in the quiet strength she carries into every new day.
