Raising for Beth Thomas’s GIST Medical Insurance
Since a few friends of Beth’s pitched the idea to raise money to help cover the health insurance costs towards travelling after her surgery, I decided that it would be a good idea to make a gofundme for Beth and her cause. Beth is currently dealing with an incredibly rare form of cancer (Carney’s-Stratakis GIST Sarcoma) which is caused by a KIT gene deficiency. It is estimated that 1 in every 1000,000 are are born with the disorder per year, globally.
Myself and Beth had been planning and saving to travel around South America or South Asia (unsure of which as now entirely dependent on the insurance costs closer to the time) during 2020 for a while, however during October 2019 we received some unexpected and devastating news that her stomach cancer that she had previously had been diagnosed/cleared of at the age of 12-13, had sadly once again returned.
Beth’s surgery is planned for the 13th of February 2020 to have her stomach, spleen, pancreas and other various areas of her gastrointestinal system removed due to the spread of disease. A week or so back she was gifted a Young Adults Guide to Cancer through the post from her TYA Sarcoma team, with general information about life during and after a cancer diagnosis. One of the chapters spoke about the importance of travel insurance after treatment, so curiously we decided to run a few quotes through comparison sites and past insurance brokers which shockingly gave results that came as rather an unpleasant surprise due to premiums reaching up to £2,800 and above for just 4 weeks away.
The reason I’ve decided to start this go fund me is to kindly ask Beth’s close friends, family and loved ones to please share on her story to bring awareness to GIST Sarcomas, and even if possible donate to Beth’s cause in hopes of her still being able to travel and continue with her plans after surgery. I know it would also mean an awful lot to Beth to be able to have something positive and exciting to look forward to during this difficult and life altering time.
I really don’t expect us to reach the target, but any help would be so whole-heartedly appreciated to help towards gifting Beth something to continue to look forward to during her recovery.
Thank you for taking your time to read this, any recognition, a share via Facebook or a donation whether it be big or small will make all the difference to Beth’s hopes of escaping this situation for a few weeks.
All our love, and kindest wishes.
Josh and Beth
https://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/about-genomics-england/the-100000-genomes-project/
https://www.gistsupportuk.com/paediatric-paws-gist/
