HELP PAY CHARLOTTE'S DOCTORS!
Things
are tough all over: but some folks are having it even tougher. I'm here to bring one of those people to your
attention.
She's Charlotte Loftus, and she survived bone cancer. Now she's dealing with a different disease, but she wants to get on with the rest of her
life "“ and you can help her do it!
The thing that folks forget about cancer and other life-threatening conditions
is that what the disease doesn't take away, the treatment probably will. Charlotte beat her cancer when she was just
9, and (despite all the limitations imposed by her artificial knee, thigh and
shin components, and the numerous surgeries required to maintain them) she
managed to get through high school, graduate from college and hit the job market. She fell in love with me, and we adopted a dog... and then her liver stopped working. As Charlotte's energy fell off the map, as
her skin began to crawl and her magnificent blue eyes turned a dull yellow, a
number of doctors and specialists took more than half a year to diagnose the problem: Autoimmune Hepatitis. It's when your immune system thinks your own
liver is an infection "“ and, just like the bone tumors that preceded it by so
many years, nobody really knows why it happens.
Luckily,
Charlotte's new disease wasn't advanced enough for her to need an organ transplant. The treatment for Autoimmune Hepatitis,
however, suppresses her immune system to the point that she gets sick at the drop of
a hat and now can't undergo any pain-relieving surgeries on all the scar tissue
that's built up around her leg implants.
Her energy level remains severely compromised, too, and it just happens that the main
side-effect of her medications turns out to be nausea.
Imagine trying to find a job nowadays with all of that on your back as well as student loans, and
you'll get a good picture of what Charlotte is up against. Since her 31st birthday is coming
up, I figure that no gift could possibly be any more appropriate, or more
appreciated, than trying to pay down a portion of her new medical debt. Feel free to donate whatever amount you can, folks - each and every dollar counts!