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Help Bane yeet cancer!

Hi fellow humans! My name is Bane Shaheen and I need to get my health insurance back to pay for cancer surgery ASAP.


In September 2018, after temping for a local company for 10 months, I was finally hired and got health insurance, so I was able to start physical therapy for a mysterious, 3-year-old pain in my shoulder. It turned out what I thought was a torn rotator cuff was actually a 1 in a million malignant tumor lodged in my brachial plexus — proving yet again that Dr. Web Search is no match for a trained medical professional.

(grinning because I come from the Miss Tyra School of Makeovers. No hair? Don't care!)

I was officially diagnosed with synovial sarcoma in March 2019 and left work in April to begin 5 cycles of intense chemotherapy and more than a month of radiation treatments in Boston (76 miles from home).

My immune system would tank out every so often due to the chemo (with my Absolute Neutrophil Count or ANC dropping to 10 or even 0 parts per microliter during the chemo nadir), sending me to the emergency room and/or an inpatient stay in a hospital, but I’ve tried to keep my spirits and those of those around me high with chocolate chip cookies and terrible dad jokes (What do you call a pain in your head after eating toast? A breadache! What if it’s really bad? It’s a migrain!)

(here for all your dank cancer meme needs)

My short-term disability insurance coverage ended in July, and since then I’ve been waiting for my long-term disability carrier to approve my claim. Evidently, because I was diagnosed with cancer less than a year after being officially hired, they needed to complete an invasive pre-excluding conditions investigation and subsequent research before determining whether I qualify. Ouch.

Without long-term disability, I haven’t been able to make COBRA payments — and without active health insurance, the hospital is reluctant to schedule me for surgery. As of today (9/12), my procedure has been delayed another week, risking metastasis or worse. Obviously that’s suck city for me, to put it mildly.

(an art I arted about my feelings about cancer)

I’m asking my fellow humans to help me out with maintaining my existence/ health insurance through the end of October 2019. I’m basically going to be turned into a human rotisserie chicken to get the more than 5-cm tumor out, as the procedure entails (or entrails) the following:


—Drill through a bone thingey

—”Disconnect” my left pectoral muscle (which sounds deceptively fancy and hopefully does not involve a hacksaw)

—Temporarily remove a section of my collarbone (which probably will involve a hacksaw)

—Scoop out the tumor (possibly using a ladle?)

—Put Bane back together again

(umm....wut now?)

With all that said, having health insurance coverage during my surgery and for a few weeks after would be a major load off. Here are some testimonials about me as a person:

“She’s a perfectly adequate human being” —my friend/ landlord (aka friendlord)

“Bane is an okay wife, I guess” —my husband

“The little boy needs her hair back” —my pal's 3-year-old

“Meow mew mew” —my cats


I’ve been guilt-promised a doggo should I make it through everything that’s ahead, so please help me survive and whatnot because that’s a lot to look forward to, and my cats really want a little sister/ brother <3

Also, since I owe more than $270,000 in student loan debt, my continued existence will really piss off some debt collection companies (who are avidly waiting to sell my organs on the black market), so if you wanna stick it to Capitalism Daddy, I am totally here to help with that.


Thank you, and Cthulhu bless,

Bane (aka the toxic princess) <3

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Donations 

  • Michael Curry
    • $50 
    • 5 yrs
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Organizer

Bane Shaheen
Organizer
Rochester, NH

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