The Jane Noles Medical Fund
As a lot of you know, our sister Jane (middle in the photo
here) has been fighting Stage IV (terminal) Rectal Cancer for almost 5 years.
Recent events have put Jane in a dire financial situation, and she needs help.
While she is getting better at asking for help, this (asking others for money)
is something she still finds difficult. She has little choice now, however, but
to accept whatever help we can give.
In a nutshell, Jane's promised and expected disability income and
insurance benefits have ceased to continue. And since she is physically
unable to work, she has no income. Reaching
out to our community of friends, contacts, and more is the only option
available to Jane at this time.
Please keep reading as it explains why
we have to go this route.
Jane first went on disability (50% of her salary) in 2008, and she worked
part-time as often as she could between surgeries, chemo, radiation, and
treatment. Eventually, Jane had to make
the difficult decision to "retire" from the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC)
when it became evident that trying to work was counter-productive. She made
that decision only after being assured over and over again by many, many
different people at UIC and SURS (State University Retirement System) that her
retirement disability benefits would continue after her regular disability
benefit ended on September 22, 2012. This meant she would receive the equivalent of
35% her last salary, and most importantly, would continue to receive the same
insurance coverage at the same rate for as long as she lived.
WE HAVE JUST LEARNED THIS IS NOT THE
CASE!
Recently, while researching information on the SURS website, she stumbled upon
a small sentence in fine print stating that employees enrolled in her type of
plan are not eligible for the expected retirement disability benefit. This
means termination of ALL benefits as of September 22, 2012, both disability
income and insurance benefits. This is after YEARS of being told the opposite.
This was neither evident at the time of enrolling nor when Jane investigated
her retirement disability options with her superiors! We have and will still
try to fight for any recourse, however dismal the outcome may seem at this
time. A person high-up in her department at UIC is as livid as Jane, as he was
very involved in her process of transitioning out of UIC, and he also had been
misled and misinformed by several people, some very high up, who said Jane
would be getting retirement disability and insurance coverage at the same rate.
He recently appealed as much as he could and was shut down basically with
"sorry we gave you misinformation time and again, but you are out of luck."
So this is where Jane stands. Many life decisions were made based on that (now
misleading) information. She is in active treatment, once again on chemotherapy
because her tumors' rate of growth increased, and she's facing many procedures
to not only help stop the growth of her cancer, but to try to correct some of
the extreme effects from her previous invasive treatments. She lives in chronic
pain with much-decreased quality of life. Jane needs insurance "“ and will
hopefully be eligible for Medicare in March of 2013, but for now her only
option is paying $918.44 every month for COBRA coverage. On top of paying
nearly $1000 per month, there are additional copays for medical appointments,
procedures, tests, chemotherapy, prescription drugs and deductibles to meet.
Add rent and other living expenses on to that. All of this is occurring at the
same time her income has gone to $ Zero (having been a State of Illinois
employee precludes her from eligibility for Social Security disability
assistance - nor does she qualify under Arizona's recently tightened
disability/welfare programs).
The very least we need to do for Jane is raise enough money to offset these monthly
COBRA premiums, until she can get enrolled (hopefully) in Medicare. If we all
get together and donate whatever we comfortably can, and spread the word and
the link to this site, we think we can help Jane with this financial mess. We
can't do anything to reverse Jane's cancer. However, hopefully with your help
we can increase the length and quality of Jane's life and lessen the pain.
So, that is some of Jane's story. Can
you help, please?
Sincerely,
Robin Sprague and Julie Jonas, Jane's sisters