Greg Makley Rituxan & UVB Treatment
This Go Fund Me account was set up to help raise enough money to cover treatments of Rituxan. They are $6,000 each and his insurance covers 80% which leaves $1200 per treatment. He has already received financial assistance from the drug manufacturer for 4 treatments to be covered.
In April 2017, Greg Makley was diagnosed with Mantle Cell Lymphoma. MCL is a somewhat rare yet highly aggressive form of cancer. After speaking with several specialists, we learned that this disease is not responsive enough to chemo to take the risk of treatment. Very few patients went into remission and of those that did the disease came back more aggressive. Greg opted to attempt every natural remedy we could research and find. Many of them can be accredited to his survival rate thus far. He has gone through several complications since his diagnosis including a heart attack leading to stent implanted in his valve. He was taking blood thinners after that which then caused the bleeding in his stomach from tumors to escalate rapidly. This dropped his hemoglobin drastically. We almost lost him at that point but after several transfusions and prayers he stabilized and recovered. A few months later he had a tumor obstructing his bowel that caused him to back up with the possibility of removing parts of his bowel among other things. He was able to undergo a successful bout of radiation to shrink it. Along with all these issues and the constant doctor’s appointments and treatments he has accumulated an enormous amount of medical debt as is. We as a family have tried to assist as much as we can along the way but the time has come that he needs more help than we can give. As of September 18, 2017 he has been given 2 of the 4 treatments that we have covered. Our hope is to get enough money collected to get him the total 10 treatments recomended but either way he will get as many as possible with the money raised. We understand that this is not a cure but we hope it can give him some relief and quality of life for a little while longer. Any help at all is greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for reading his story. Please keep us all in your prayers.
Update April 2018, he is currently being treated with Rituxan weekly and also with a UVB treatment weekly that costs $475 each. It is not covered under Medicare. His white count was very low so he had to go through bone marrow extraction to have it tested for the possibility of the cancer spreading. Thankfully no signs were seen in the bone marrow and his tumors have maintained size. His physician considers these treatments to be maintaining his disease progression. That means he's surviving with it and it's not getting worse. Which is the best we can hope for so we'll take it!
May 19th the family is hosting a benefit to help raise money to continue covering the cost of his treatments. Details can be found on the flyer. 
