Why am I posting about Mike? Because he has cancer and he can't get the treatment that will save his life.
In Mike's own words:
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Laura's (his wife) overview of their situation:
"To whom it may concern,
Hello, my name is Laura, and I would like to tell you a little about myself. I'm 24 years old. I live in a tiny apartment with my wonderful husband. I love my family, and my family loves me, we even have a cat. I'm not working right now, nor am I going to college, but I will be doing both very soon if I can help it. I want to own my own home, and my own business someday. Sounds very average right? Apparently not.
Now I would like to tell you a little bit about my husband. He's a 28-year-old, tall, skinny, kinda nerdy-looking guy who likes to play computer games. He's very fond of me, and is very supportive of the aforementioned dreams of going to college and being a small business owner.
In August of 2011 my then boyfriend (now husband) was diagnosed with stage 2 testicular cancer. At the time we were both working, but I lost my job somewhere between planning a quick wedding, personal dental surgeries, and taking my husband to the doctor. His job is sitting very uselessly in limbo at the moment. I was let go, being as all the absences were not covered by FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) as I had not been at my job very long. He could not go to work because if he wasn't recovering from a surgery, or chemotherapy, he was on so many chemicals he felt like he didn't know which way was up. Chemotherapy isn't any fun, I don't feel the need to elaborate on that.
As of November of 2011, after dozens and dozens of phone calls, letters, emails, and prayers, we were unable to keep up the insurance premiums, rent, car payments, and all the other bills. Until then I was able to make it work on a $500 a month budget and whatever we had in savings, and borrowed from friends and family. We had finally run out of money. So now we don't have insurance. However, by some luck we were able to finish chemotherapy.
So here's the problem: Mike still needs a very expensive surgery, something to the tune of $100,000.00 and we don't have insurance. We currently live in the state of Oregon. Oregon Health Plan, right? Apparently not. We've applied for this coverage four times, and have been told he doesn't qualify four times.
However through this entire process, I have been been looking under every rock within eyesight for any kind of financial assistance. We have bad credit or no credit, so no loans or credit cards. We have contacted every agency anyone ever suggested and all that got us was a $100 gas card, and food stamps. (Just to weed out a couple of suggestions: I have called everyone, if you can find an agency I didn't contact I'll eat my freaking hat, O.K.?) Minus those two, we got a big fat stinking NO, or they were out of money, or we didn't qualify for a laundry list of stupid reasons (too young, too old, not a father, not terminal, not the right kind of cancer, we don't live in the right state, we haven't been poor long enough, not the right minority, that kind of stuff).
So here's my complaint, my issue, whatever. My husband is sick. Really, really sick. He will die if we don't take care of this. He doesn't have a toothache, he doesn't have a cold, we've been working through this for darn near 6 months, and he's not better yet. So, what would you do? How would you feel, if all you wanted to do was take care of someone you loved, and it felt like every bureaucratic bean counter didn't give a crap about your loved one because you were poor and normal. Well, that all being said, I care a lot about my husband, I would like to grow old with him, so would he.
So what are YOU gonna do about it? I just need enough of the right people to help, do what they advertise, fix my husband so he and I can go back to our jobs, and our lives, continue paying our taxes, and being productive members of society.
Thank you for reading this.
Laura"
Why I (Mary) care:
1. He's my best friend's husband and an all around good person.
2. I watched my ex-boyfriend go through cancer twice, and even WITH insurance, it fucked over his family royally in the financial department.
3. He's a human being and deserves to live past his 30th birthday!
The current plan of action is as follows: "Now, raising the $100,000.00 that it is going to cost for his life-saving surgery, is a little astronomical, thankfully we just need to get him on an insurance plan that doesn't have a pre-existing condition clause, and get him into the doctor as soon as possible. We can do this in fairly short order via a plan called Federal Medical Insurance Pool however the monthly premiums are high, about $375 a month, which does not include co-pays, out of pocket expenses, travel, medications, etc. We need to raise about $5,000.00 for it." - Laura, Mike's wife
If you'd like to make an outright donation to help Mike, please send it via PayPal to miketrethewey@gmail.com
This is Mike and Laura being all cute together. Daw.
