To the campaign staff of President Barack Obama:

I have a story that I think says a lot about how Obama has helped the middle class in multiple ways.

My husband and I worked for a publishing company—17 years for him, 13 years for me. The company could not afford its staggering debt and laid off wave after wave of employees. Within a year, when our son was 3, my husband was laid off. I was laid off 6 months later, in December 2008.

The Recovery Act subsidized the cost of our COBRA health insurance while we built our freelance editing business. This is important, because I was diagnosed in April 2011 with breast cancer. If we had let our insurance coverage lapse, we would have faced financial ruin and I might not have been able to make the best choices for treatment (I had surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, and am now healthy and fit and enjoying feeling good). It's possible the Recovery Act saved my life.

Also, being small business owners, we soon acquired insurance "off the rack"—individual policies. I know that without the Affordable Care Act in place, my coverage would have been dropped when I was diagnosed. Again, President Obama's policies protected my family and me—definitely from financial ruin, possibly from death by cancer at age 42.

And in the mail this last week, I received notice that we are eligible to refinance our home under HARP, via our current lender; we are doing so and will save $16,000 and pay off our mortgage sooner.

We also received a refund from our insurer this month (because of the Affordable Care Act's 80/20 rule) and heard this week from our insurer that my well-woman coverage will now be covered 100%. Well-woman coverage means a lot to someone who has been through breast cancer.

So Obama's policies have helped us through a tough economy. Our freelance business is great, my health is great, and I am very grateful to him and grateful to you and all of the campaign staff who are working to reelect him, so that other Americans will have the opportunity to say that they know firsthand that the president has their backs. He has mine, for sure.

—Kathryn, Texas