A Durham mother stricken with cancer took her two children to New York, hoping that her appearance on the "Today Show" Wednesday morning, will help her keep custody of her kids.
"As far as the prognosis no one really knows how long I'm going to live, which is the same for any person. Even my doctors don't know," Alaina Giordano said during an interview with Matt Lauer. "Some people live two years, some people live 20 years, some people live five."
Alaina Giordano is fighting stage four breast cancer, as she also fights to keep her two children after a Durham family court judge ruled that her children’s father should get primary custody. He now lives in Chicago.
On "Today," she criticized Judge Nancy Gordon's ruling, saying, "I think this is outrageous. I think it is a dangerous ruling for me and my children and how it will affect us, but also for people all over the world with cancer. This is a bad precedent."
She also explained how her children, ages five and 11, are coping. "They know that I have cancer, they know that I go for treatment once a month now, they know that it's stable. They know me as mom, and it doesn't affect our daily life."
And she also responded to the judge's recommendation that it would be easier for her to move to Chicago than for her husband to leave his job and move back to Durham. Giordano says, "My cancer treatment is in Durham. I have found a great medical team. It took me years to find this medical team. I'm thriving in large part because of this team of doctors at Duke. And basically it appears to me that the judge decided my husband's job was more important than my health." She says she thinks her husband should find a job in Durham and move himself.
When she spoke with NBC-17's Annette Newell on Tuesday, Giordano said she sacrificed her job as a paralegal, hoping for a happy home life raising her children. She says she helped her husband get a loan for his education, and moved the family to Durham for his job. But she and her husband separated after she says she suffered domestic abuse and he moved to Chicago to take another job.
Now, as she is fighting stage 4 breast cancer, Giordano says the judge's ruling means her children will have to move to Chicago in June, unless she can find a lawyer who will take her case pro bono and appeal it. There are thirty days to appeal, and the ruling came down April 25th.
Judge Nancy Gordon ruled that because Giordano does not have a full-time job and cannot support the children, the father should get primary custody. If Giordano wants to be near her children, the judge says she should move to Chicago as well.
Giordano, however, says her friends, her support system and her doctors are all in Durham. And that's where she wants her kids to stay.
"I have nothing left to lose, I've kind of lost everything at this point if I lose them," Giordano said.
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