On April 30, Annie will begin a 16-week chemotherapy regimen to treat breast cancer. In the weeks since Annie’s diagnosis and surgery to remove the tumor, we have been fortunate to be able to lean on the support provided by friends and family. We are about to need more help. A lot more.

We have created a CaringBridge page to help people know, as best we can, when our needs will be most acute and what sorts of things will be most helpful: things like emotional support, companionship, and quotidian tasks that don't stop needing to be done when you have cancer. But unfortunately one of the things we need the most is money.

Having cancer in America is very expensive. In the long run, a big thing you could do to help is support politicians who promise to pass universal, single-payer healthcare and hold them to account when they fail to live up to that promise.

In the short-term, our out-of-pocket expenses are capped at $6,500 -- which is better than no cap but is still significant. (Each round of chemo costs ~$700 out of pocket.) We're very fortunate that Annie has a great job, compassionate managers, strong union contract, and the Family And Medical Leave Act of 1994 keeping her employment secure. But in order to focus on treatment and recovery, she is forgoing approximately $8,500 of income she would have otherwise been able to work for.

So that's how we've arrived at this ask of $15,000.

I cannot emphasize enough how much we hate doing this. We all deserve better than to have to go around begging for money so that we don't die or go into medical debt in the process of not dying. But here we are.

One of the most painful things of having to make this ask is that everything is incredibly expensive right now and most of us, to varying degrees, are struggling to get by.

If giving money is not something that's accessible to you, there are plenty of other ways you can help.

Come to our house and hang out. Clean off the kitchen counter. Take the dog for a walk. If you have a child who has experienced a parent having cancer, have them write a letter to Hugo. Anything. You don't need to ask permission. Just show up and weed some dandelions or whatever.

Find more details on non-financial ways to help on our CaringBridge page.