Shannon Dawson

June 20, 1978 – January 8, 2025

Shannon was a 46 year old mother of two, diagnosed with stage 4 terminal lung cancer in August of 2024. She wanted to share her story for others who might be in the same struggle, and to document her experience as someone who has suffered years of economic discrimination and mistreatment from the American healthcare system. Her hope was that her story might help affect a change that might mean others don’t suffer the same way.

On January 8, 2025 Shannon passed away in her home, surrounded by her family. Her family is determined to continue her legacy and spread her story around the world. She fought for this system to notice her, to help her for over a decade and was only told it was anxiety, she was faking, she just wanted pain pills. All the while cancer was raging throughout her body while she had no pain prescriptions whatsoever.

She had also been fighting for disability, but the whole process took so long, she passed away the day before her Social Security was approved. Since her lawyers advised her to not “present herself as married” when filing, the family will be lucky to even see any of her back pay now. Her whole family had to miss months of income because she required around the clock care and her medicaid did not cover a full time caregiver. This experience has been beyond traumatic for them and now they are facing eviction since they are now months behind on rent and they were counting on her Social Security back pay to cover the shortfall.

Please follow her social media channels for vlogs, video essays and short films telling her and her family’s story. Please, comment, like and subscribe.

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Thank you all for all of your support! Everyone has been so amazing.