A mom who’s played a role in hundreds of Mahopac kids’ lives as a cafeteria worker at Mahopac High School and Fulmar Road and local Girl Scout leader is waging the toughest battle of her own life after a severe health setback left her unable to work — or even handle day-to-day tasks most of us take for granted.
In February, doctors discovered 57 lesions on Mahopac resident Gina Antunes’ brain, along with a large lesion on her spine and three hemangiomas (noncancerous tumors) in other areas of her spine, along with multiple sclerosis and other concurrent immune system diseases.
Antunes, age 39, and her husband, Danny, are not only facing crushing medical expenses, they are doing so down one income.
“I literally can’t go to work,” said Antunes, who is looking for a job she can do from home.
Antunes’ story was brought to Mahopac News’ attention by friend and Girl Scout co-leader Chastity O’Sullivan, who is organizing a GoFundMe for the family.
“Gina has always been known as a hardworking and resilient person,” O’Sullivan said. “She and her husband have spent their lives working hard, supporting themselves, and doing their best to meet their responsibilities. Unfortunately, her diagnosis has changed everything almost overnight.”
In addition to the physical disability — which includes numbness, weakness and pain — Antunes said the emotional toll has also been hard to cope with.
“I feel like I’m grieving the person I was before I ended up in the hospital back in February,” she said. “It’s a rollercoaster of feelings from sadness, to fear, to loneliness and everything in between. I’ve had to prioritize rest and taking care of myself over work and being a very involved mother” of the Antunes’ 7-year-old daughter, Audrey.
Instead, her life is now “managing medications, doctors’ appointments and struggling through physical rehabilitation while trying to eat healthier and making modifications to my responsibilities.”
Antunes called multiple sclerosis “an incredibly lonely disease.”
“I feel like no one understands it if they don’t have it,” she said. “It’s exhausting trying to explain what I’m feeling physically to anyone and it’s not visible when people look at me. A lot of people think it’s a time where I can relax, or do art or gardening to pass the days before my infusions. But I’m not physically able to do any of my hobbies currently and I’m not sure if or when I can in the future. I am barely able to do basic things like shower, walk short distances, drive my daughter to school, cook or clean.”
Yet she tries to stay positive.
“I remain slightly hopeful mentally only because I’m slated to start a disease modifying therapy (DMT) in a few weeks called Ocrevus,” she explained. “I’ll have two IV infusions that last a few hours and are two weeks apart to begin with. Then I’ll have to have the infusions every six months for the rest of my life, to hopefully stop my immune system from attacking my nerves further. I’ll be immunocompromised for two years at least. I’m not looking forward to avoiding groups of people during that time.
“It makes me very sad to think I cannot work in the school cafeterias, host a birthday party for my daughter like I used to, or other things because of the risk of infection.”
As a result, she’s looking for work she can do at home, noting that she has 13 years of experience in medical billing.
But in the meantime, community support has been essential.
“I’ve had some very supportive friends, which I’m incredibly thankful for, who started a GoFundMe for me and chipped in, as well as my husband who is doing the laundry and some house chores after getting home from his job,” she said. “Not being able to work is causing us financial hardship. We lived paycheck to paycheck before my acute flare-up, hospitalization and subsequent diagnosis of relapsing-remitting MS in February. We are not able to afford our basic bills and all the copays for my care and prescriptions. We have no savings and it’s very scary. No amount of budgeting can fix the income vs. expense issue. We were already down to a shoestring budget.”
Antunes said she was reluctant at first to ask for help but came to the realization that the family needed support to get through the immediate crisis.
“Right now what I really need is just financial help to make ends meet and/or services that are available for help paying for groceries,” she said. “I’ve applied for Social Security disability and the estimate is 137 days for the next step in that process. I’m on step three of five, but it’s not even guaranteed I would get approved and it could take years. All I know is I’m currently disabled and I’d need disability now.”
“We will find out what my new baseline is after I start Ocrevus,” Antunes said. “I’m not going to be the same person I was physically before this very bad flare in February; only time will tell where I settle physically after my treatments. I’m only hopeful because the doctors tell me I can eventually feel better than I feel right now. I’m never going to be ‘better’ like how you get better after the flu but I won’t be in an acute flare forever and hopefully I won’t have as many with my treatment. I’ve heard through support groups that people have various degrees of success from DMTs which also gives me hope.”
The family moved to Mahopac a decade ago because they “fell in love with the small-town vibes, the quiet neighborhoods and the surrounding environmentally protected land,” Antunes said.
When Audrey started kindergarten, Antunes decided to work in the Mahopac School District cafeterias to have her schedule line up with that of her daughter.
“I started out at the high school in the deli station, which I loved, making tons of sandwiches and paninis for the students and some staff,” she said. “It was a fast-paced and physically demanding but a very rewarding job. I enjoyed not only working with my coworkers and management but providing high-quality service to the customers.”
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