Help Paul Recover From Bone Marrow Cancer

From Paul's neighbor Jane:

Paul has been my next-door neighbor and dear friend for thirty years. He’s an extraordinarily kind and capable guy who helps me and other neighbors with things he knows how to do--and we don’t. Through the years, we have had stimulating, intelligent and simply fun conversations about day-to-day life and the world. Although I am twenty plus years his senior, Paul has been nothing short of a godsend to me and to others in the neighborhood. That’s just the kind of guy he is.

In early December, I hadn’t seen Paul for a week or two but a few days before Christmas, I called him over to perform one of our rituals: getting my little table-top Christmas tree up from my basement. When he arrived at my door, I knew he was in trouble. He was beyond pale, bent over and in pain walking like a man far older than his sixty-two years. I was kind of in shock but, as usual, he insisted on bringing up the tree.

Two days later, he was admitted to the Emergency Room at St. Francis Hospital. The doctors said that his spine was so weakened by hairline fractures that he needed emergency surgery to install rod and pins immediately to strengthen his ailing spine. It was during that surgery his doctors found the underlying cause. Paul had bone marrow cancer, otherwise known as Multiple Myeloma. Clearly, it wasn’t much of a Christmas for Paul and his family.

Nor was that the end of his troubles. After Covid, the retail manufacturing business with which he’d spent many years working went out of business. Paul had derived the bulk of his income from that business. This, and the remaining $100,000+ mortgage still left to be paid added up to bad news all the way around.

When one factors in the slim possibility that he might be able to find another job at his age----as well as being well enough to “work” at that job, the plot, as they say, thickens…

Paul is the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back. He always has been and always will be. I am hoping that at this tough time in his life, we all give whatever we can to help Paul’s situation. He deserves this. Thank you.