Hello friends. Some of you may know, and most of you probably don’t, that Maggie Gyori Cutler and her husband Alan Leifer have had a really horrible six months. Alan was diagnosed with not one, not two, but three different kinds of cancer. As if one isn’t bad enough. Alan made the decision to fight and endured an 18-hour horrific surgery which left him in a medically induced coma for 18 days on a respirator in ICU. He also had a minor stroke during that time. Miraculously, Alan woke up, was able to be taken off the ventilator with a tracheotomy, and is breathing and speaking and seems to have no permanent damage from the stroke. Unfortunately, issues with the wound required three additional surgeries and horrible pain no one should have to go through. Maggie had to take a leave of absence from work and has been with Alan 12 to 14 hours a day. The goal was to get Alan into a rehab facility weeks ago, but the uncooperative infection has stopped that from happening and is more painful after each attempt to fix it.

I assure you Maggie and Alan did not ask me to start this GoFundMe, but everyone that knows me is fully aware that I do things without asking permission and ask for forgiveness eventually (most of the time). So at this point, let’s do what we can to take some of the financial burden off them so they can focus on getting Alan on the path to better health. They both deserve a lot of happiness. From my 50 years of friendship with Maggie, she always goes above and beyond for friends and family—and lately every stray cat in the neighborhood. Do what you can and feel free to blame me, because as children Maggie blamed EVERYTHING on me.

Any support both financial and emotional will mean the world to Maggie and Alan. Thank you for being there for them in this difficult time.