Cancer update with an urgent request for help, please read…

As you know, Thursday was the first day of my chemo and radiation therapy for throat cancer. As you can see from the photo below, I was hardly enjoying the chemotherapy, but I did manage to bring a smile to the faces of a couple of nurses with my positive attitude!

I had no sleep at all the night before. The chemo and radiation hit me a lot harder than most, but feeling sick and exhausted, I still managed to crack a few jokes. I feel bad for the nurses because they work so hard, are underpaid, and in the cancer department, they are dealing with patients who, rightfully so, feel sorry for themselves and often don’t have much longer to live!

For those that have been following my journey, I know from your comments that whether I have a right to or not, I don’t feel sorry for myself because death is simply a part of life, and hopefully, I’ll pull through!

The worst part of Thursday wasn’t the side effects of treatments, but what I found out later on!

I truly need your help!

I haven’t mentioned this to any of you before and not many people I know in person. I consider you as much of a friend to me as I do them, but the truth of the matter is this:

I’ve been sick for over a year now but only found out on NYE in the ER that it was due to throat cancer, so I’ve been unable to make a living for a very long time.

The medical bills for cancer are ridiculously high. I’ve spent a small fortune on those. I lost my health insurance long before I was diagnosed, so now I’m completely financially drained. It’s embarrassing for me to write this, but it is what it is!

Fortunately for me, a good friend of mine was kind enough to pay for a new health insurance premium so I could get it rolling on February 1st, just in time to beat the deadline for non-acceptance of pre-existing conditions. That was a bigger relief than any could imagine. He was also kind enough to pay the following month's premium up until the end of March, for which I am eternally grateful!

Much more than thankful, I also had someone else who offered to pay the health insurance premium before the end of March to cover at the very least the month of April, but last week they told me that they could no longer do it. My heart sank!

A few days later, they contacted me again to tell me they could do it now, so I was over the moon, a fighting chance again, I thought. But today, they changed their minds back again for whatever reason, and now I’m left with no chance at all!

This is not the positive thinking version of myself writing this that you’re accustomed to. At gone 5 am in the morning, still with no sleep, asking friends for help to pay a health insurance premium that hopefully will save my life, I’m completely embarrassed, burnt out, disheartened, and feeling depressed and desperate!

Not at the thought of dying because I gave it my best shot, but it wasn’t enough. But because I don’t want to die over a health insurance premium that over the next several months is going to cost several thousand dollars broken into monthly installments, which for me right now may as well be several billions!

As most of you know, I’ve been an animal & wildlife advocate for many, many years and donated a lot of money and time to helping them. So I guess I’m supposed to write now that if I could do it all again, I’d have saved the money for myself in case I got cancer and couldn’t pay Drs bills!

No! I’d rather have the cancer!

I hope my writing didn’t depress anyone. I’m not very good at asking for help!

I’ve contacted the hospital financial aid that can help with the co-pays, deductibles, that sort of thing, but they can’t pay a health insurance premium!

I even contacted cancer foundations and societies that do help with premiums, but they all told me that my certain type of cancer didn’t fit their current benefits, so were all unable to help!

Medicaid’s no good because so much precious time has been wasted before I was correctly diagnosed, and statistically speaking, my chances of survival with them at this point would be reduced so much partially because of that, and other things that it wouldn’t even be a fighting chance!

Plus, I’ve already got a treatment plan from start to finish set up in place that I started today, which is totally dependent on the cheapest way I could possibly think of doing it, through this health insurance plan which now after all of this I cannot afford!

I hope and pray that some of my friends reading this out there can please help me pay this monthly health insurance premium ❤️❤️

It’s almost 6 am, so I’ve got to try and sleep because tomorrow it’s another afternoon of radiation!

Thanks, Phil ❤️