Dave's Medical Fund

We are reaching out to our family, friends and beyond with the hope of raising funds for a brain surgery for our 70 year old father, David “Dave” Blake. He was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, raised in Harvey, Illinois and currently resides in Nassau, Bahamas. He graduated from Fisk University (Class of 1967) where he was a Health & Physical Ed. major and pledged Kappa Alpha Psi, Alpha Delta Chapter. He taught Physical Ed. at Gifford Jr. High School from 1967-1969 in Racine, Wisconsin. In 1971 he journeyed to the Bahamas and joined the public education system where he taught at Eastern Secondary and T.G. Glover for 4 years. He then moved to St. Anne's High School where he taught and coached for 17 years before retiring and joining the staff at The Sports Center retail store as the Institutional Sales Manager. Due to a stroke, in 2011 he retired from The Sports Center. Over the years, dad was intricately involved in the sporting community of the Bahamas; specifically rugby, American football and softball, as a player, coach and official. If it was up to him he would still be working and playing at the old timers park, but has been advised not to, due to medical reasons. Over the past few months he began feeling very ill and was not his usual jovial self. This led us to make a doctor’s appointment on April 11th, 2016 for some tests, which included a MRI and MRI Contrast. On Friday April 15th, we returned for the results that showed a tumor was present, and a diagnosis of brain cancer was made. This was a hard blow and took us by surprise. It has been quite an emotional roller coaster for our family and now we are faced with the news that he requires a surgery costing approximately $60,000 to remove the tumor. Due to the possibility of the tumor growing, this surgery was advised to be best the option. The tumor has already affected his everyday abilities of walking, cognitive processing, and emotional well-being.  He has always been very active and seeing him not able to go out and enjoy his daily walks, working around the yard and in his garden, or making a batch of his famous pepper sauce; hurts us deeply, as we can only imagine how he is suffering. Unfortunately he does not have health insurance and we are unable to cover the entire cost of the surgery. There is the concern that if daddy doesn’t get the surgery soon, he will experience a greater decline in health. This is why we are reaching out to you today with the hope of raising the money to get him on the road to recovery and helping him to enjoy his life again. Any size donation and prayers are greatly appreciated, as it will make such a difference in this time of need. As updates are available we will post them.