Cancer Patient Fights for Disability to Save Home

An Ashland woman reflects on on her marriage. It’s been nearly two decades since her husband died. He passed away just one month after finally getting disability payments.This time around she’s fighting for herself.

Jeannie Azzopardi and her two children are a tight-knit family. She raised her kids alone and made a home for them in Ashland, after her husband died 18 years ago from Hodgkins Lymphoma.

Jeannie Azzopardi said, “All I wanted after my husband died was a palcefor my kids, so they could always come home.”

Now she’s in danger of loosing her home to foreclosure. In 2010 Jeannie was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy and chemotherapy. “It made me so tired,” she said.

After complications from her treatment and enduring eight surgeries,Jeannie describes the letter she received from her bank. “You are in danger of defaulting on your loan, and I think it said something about foreclosure,” she recalls.

Working part-time doesn’t make her mortgage. For more than a year she’s been fighting to receive Social Security disability payments. Money she says she desperately needs to survive. “I was denied twice. The first time they’ll deny everyone by rote. The second time they just denied me,” said Jeannie.

Her attorney says it will be about a year or more before she’s granted a hearing on her appeal. Meanwhile, she could become homeless.

Her daughter Jesse is desperately seeking help. She said, “I sent a letter to the president, to the governor, to the senator. I sent an email to Ellen Degeneres, and Steve Wilkos and Maury, in hopes that something would happen.”