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Please help me fight cancer
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$6,920 raised of $10K
66 donations
I am asking for you to help me fight lung cancer. The cancer is treatable, but cannot be cured. This means I will need treatments for the rest of my life. I do have health insurance, but premiums are very expensive. I’m not able to work any longer but I am on long term disability benefits.
Here’s my story. I have worked as an attorney for 35 years, specializing in disability rights of others. I’ve represented children with disabilities, getting them services from schools, and adults with disabilities, obtaining the services they need as well as the public benefits they are entitled to. A large part of my work has involved helping people who become disabled and who can no longer work - ironically, in circumstances similar to my own.
Animal rescue has also been one of my passions for years. In fact, I currently have 6 cats, all rescued from my front yard over the last 15 years. I volunteered for cat shelters, and fostered abandoned and lost cats and kittens.
Gardening was my stress reliever. I loved to care for my yard, establishing vegetable beds and flower gardens. I used to mow and trim my own yard, and did most of the work of building vegetable garden beds each year. Because of the cancer I can’t do any of this work any longer, plus it is costing me weekly to pay for yard mowing. I can’t do the physical work of housecleaning, either, so I have an added expense from hiring a cleaner.
Because of changes in my job and the legal services agency that I worked for, I relocated to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2015, from Shreveport, Louisiana, where I had lived for 30 years. I had to leave my home and purchase a new house in Baton Rouge, beginning work there with another legal services organization. The very next summer a major flood occurred, destroying my home and thousands of others in the area. This was a huge financial setback. I depleted my savings and investments in the restoration of my home, and other housing costs, like insurance, have substantially increased here since the flood.
After the flood, during 2016, I worked for other flood victims, helping them get the title to their homes straightened out, and to get FEMA payments that they were owed. This was in addition to my regular legal work and my own battles with FEMA and my insurance company to get funds necessary to rebuild. I was driving back and forth from New Orleans and Baton Rouge, because my sister took me into her home in New Orleans while mine was being restored. I finally, after 7 months, got my house rebuilt, and was able to move back into it, and resumed my regular work activities at my office.
However, in the summer of 2017 I started having severe pain in my neck, shoulders, and arms, along with my back and legs. An MRI showed degeneration in the discs in my neck, as well as my lower back. Physical therapy and steroid injections seemed to help initially, but the pain continued to the point of my missing work because of problems with moving, walking, or driving.
The doctor sent me for another MRI test in November 2018, and the results shocked me. Instead of just showing further degeneration of the discs in my back and neck, which would have been bad enough, it showed lung cancer. The cancer has also spread into the bones in my back, thigh, and ribs. I used to smoke cigarettes, but I quit 16 years ago, and thought that I certainly was free from any bad effects of the habit.
This cancer diagnosis has, as expected, completely changed my life.
The personal, professional, emotional, and financial cost of this has been devastating, not only for me, but for my family. The day my sister heard the results of the MRI, she made plans to relocate here, renting out her New Orleans home, and moving into a room in my home. It’s fortunate that she is able to work from home, and that is what she is doing. It’s been terrifically hard for her, too, but without her I may have been forced to go to a nursing home.
I'm having cancer treatment consisting of radiology and chemotherapy, with periodic body scans and tests to monitor the progress of the treatment. I have chemotherapy once a month. There has been some progress, but it has been a slow process. I actually have fractures in my leg bones, causing daily knee and leg pain, that inhibits my movement. My rib area is affected with fractures, too, so I also have pain in my arms. I’m now drawing long term disability benefits, and will begin drawing Social Security disability benefits pretty soon. I can’t work, either to practice law or to do any other kind of work. I've had to give up the hobbies and volunteer activities that I loved, and have to carefully monitor my financial well-being.
Why do I think I deserve your help? Short answer is I need help. I know what it’s like to need help. I spent 35 years helping other people to fight government agencies to get the benefits and financial help to which they are entitled. I’ve worked in shelters and with individuals caring for lost, abandoned and feral animals, with an emphasis on getting these animals spayed and neutered, and I would like to be able to continue to contribute to these causes.
In my legal practice, besides representing individual clients, I’ve spent much time training younger attorneys. Most of them have praised my work with them as a mentor. I helped to train new attorneys, to show them not just the law, but how to treat clients respectfully, how to research the law effectively, and to help them to develop all the skills a compassionate and effective lawyer needs. Having to leave my legal services work meant that I had to give up these work activities, too.
My medical and living expenses are substantial, and the benefits I am receiving will not cover all of them. I intend to continue the fight against this cancer until it is in remission. Having extra financial help will allow me to concentrate on my care and treatment to the greatest extent possible.
People have given me some financial help already, and I’ve been truly humbled by things people have said to me about why they are willing to help.
Please help if you can. No donation is too small; it all will make a difference. Thank you.
Here’s my story. I have worked as an attorney for 35 years, specializing in disability rights of others. I’ve represented children with disabilities, getting them services from schools, and adults with disabilities, obtaining the services they need as well as the public benefits they are entitled to. A large part of my work has involved helping people who become disabled and who can no longer work - ironically, in circumstances similar to my own.
Animal rescue has also been one of my passions for years. In fact, I currently have 6 cats, all rescued from my front yard over the last 15 years. I volunteered for cat shelters, and fostered abandoned and lost cats and kittens.
Gardening was my stress reliever. I loved to care for my yard, establishing vegetable beds and flower gardens. I used to mow and trim my own yard, and did most of the work of building vegetable garden beds each year. Because of the cancer I can’t do any of this work any longer, plus it is costing me weekly to pay for yard mowing. I can’t do the physical work of housecleaning, either, so I have an added expense from hiring a cleaner.
Because of changes in my job and the legal services agency that I worked for, I relocated to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2015, from Shreveport, Louisiana, where I had lived for 30 years. I had to leave my home and purchase a new house in Baton Rouge, beginning work there with another legal services organization. The very next summer a major flood occurred, destroying my home and thousands of others in the area. This was a huge financial setback. I depleted my savings and investments in the restoration of my home, and other housing costs, like insurance, have substantially increased here since the flood.
After the flood, during 2016, I worked for other flood victims, helping them get the title to their homes straightened out, and to get FEMA payments that they were owed. This was in addition to my regular legal work and my own battles with FEMA and my insurance company to get funds necessary to rebuild. I was driving back and forth from New Orleans and Baton Rouge, because my sister took me into her home in New Orleans while mine was being restored. I finally, after 7 months, got my house rebuilt, and was able to move back into it, and resumed my regular work activities at my office.
However, in the summer of 2017 I started having severe pain in my neck, shoulders, and arms, along with my back and legs. An MRI showed degeneration in the discs in my neck, as well as my lower back. Physical therapy and steroid injections seemed to help initially, but the pain continued to the point of my missing work because of problems with moving, walking, or driving.
The doctor sent me for another MRI test in November 2018, and the results shocked me. Instead of just showing further degeneration of the discs in my back and neck, which would have been bad enough, it showed lung cancer. The cancer has also spread into the bones in my back, thigh, and ribs. I used to smoke cigarettes, but I quit 16 years ago, and thought that I certainly was free from any bad effects of the habit.
This cancer diagnosis has, as expected, completely changed my life.
The personal, professional, emotional, and financial cost of this has been devastating, not only for me, but for my family. The day my sister heard the results of the MRI, she made plans to relocate here, renting out her New Orleans home, and moving into a room in my home. It’s fortunate that she is able to work from home, and that is what she is doing. It’s been terrifically hard for her, too, but without her I may have been forced to go to a nursing home.
I'm having cancer treatment consisting of radiology and chemotherapy, with periodic body scans and tests to monitor the progress of the treatment. I have chemotherapy once a month. There has been some progress, but it has been a slow process. I actually have fractures in my leg bones, causing daily knee and leg pain, that inhibits my movement. My rib area is affected with fractures, too, so I also have pain in my arms. I’m now drawing long term disability benefits, and will begin drawing Social Security disability benefits pretty soon. I can’t work, either to practice law or to do any other kind of work. I've had to give up the hobbies and volunteer activities that I loved, and have to carefully monitor my financial well-being.
Why do I think I deserve your help? Short answer is I need help. I know what it’s like to need help. I spent 35 years helping other people to fight government agencies to get the benefits and financial help to which they are entitled. I’ve worked in shelters and with individuals caring for lost, abandoned and feral animals, with an emphasis on getting these animals spayed and neutered, and I would like to be able to continue to contribute to these causes.
In my legal practice, besides representing individual clients, I’ve spent much time training younger attorneys. Most of them have praised my work with them as a mentor. I helped to train new attorneys, to show them not just the law, but how to treat clients respectfully, how to research the law effectively, and to help them to develop all the skills a compassionate and effective lawyer needs. Having to leave my legal services work meant that I had to give up these work activities, too.
My medical and living expenses are substantial, and the benefits I am receiving will not cover all of them. I intend to continue the fight against this cancer until it is in remission. Having extra financial help will allow me to concentrate on my care and treatment to the greatest extent possible.
People have given me some financial help already, and I’ve been truly humbled by things people have said to me about why they are willing to help.
Please help if you can. No donation is too small; it all will make a difference. Thank you.