Hi, I am Debora (Long) Rowe and I am fundraising for help with medical bills. Many may remember me because of my participation in the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree Program, where I headed up a committee (for 19 years) that gave bags of personalized gifts to as many as 500 children at Christmas. It was a tremendous endeavor that I genuinely enjoyed.

Today, I have lung cancer. My treatments at Johns Hopkins have gone very well, but they are expensive. I currently owe them shy of $50,000 (my co-pay) and have two more treatments to go. My co-pay for each one of these two (20K+) treatments is $4,500, which will add another $9,000. I have a payment plan with Johns Hopkins, where they take $900 out of my pay each month. To afford that monthly payment, I sold my 2019 Toyota truck to eliminate the monthly payment and get rid of the car insurance. By my calculations, if nothing goes wrong, I will be working full time until I am 74 ½ years old to pay this medical bill off. My friend Maria would shake her head. When we worked together years ago, she teased me because I always talked about where to retire, how soon I could retire, how much money I would need, etc. Once I left that position, it seemed prudent to use my 401K to pay off my house. Then in 2020, I found it necessary to refinance it. Now I am SMH. Please know that I do not have cable TV, eat out, or spend money extravagantly.

I just can’t imagine people donating money to help me pay my medical bills in these times, but if you are willing, please know how grateful I would be. I tear up just thinking about it.