Just A Little Help - Albert's Fight
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Hi, my name is Colleen. 4 1/2 years ago I met the love of my life. 2 years ago we were married in a wedding that honored what brought us together in the first place...World of Warcraft. For the last 2 years things have been fantastic, we travelled, we dated, and we enjoyed life. One month ago my wonderful, amazing, loving husband was diagnosed with cancer. He has nasopharyangeal carcinoma, which is basically a cancerous tumor located on the top of his nasal cavity and it's large enough that it is encroaching on his brain stem. Nasopharyangeal cancer is uncommon in North America and actually quite rare in a caucasian person. This has been a huge shock to us and we have been trying to deal with this as best we can.
We are just starting on the road to treatment and hopefully beating this, but we know this is going to be a long hard road. We're lucky, we live in Canada where a good chunk of our medical costs are looked after. We live in Edmonton so Albert is being treated at The Cross Cancer Institute which is an excellent facility that is one of the best in Western Canada.
There are things we did not count on however. We didn't count on Albert's short term disablity coverage only being 60% of his regular salary, we didn't count on him having to be on narcotic pain killers 24/7 in order to not be in excrutiating pain from the constant migraine because of the location of the tumor. Because of that, I have to drive him to all his treatments and Dr.'s appointments. I've been missing a lot of work and my paycheque is taking the hit for it. Before all this started, I used up all my holiday and sick days when my Mother was undergoing cancer treatments over the summer. Yes, you read that right. My mother was diagnosed with cancer in March of this year and underwent 8 weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatments from the end of May till the end of July and all my holiday days were used to take her to her treatments. All my sick days were exhausted when Albert was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed. Every day I miss at work is unpaid. I'm putting in 9 and 10 hour days just to try and make up for time that I miss.
We are finding that it's getting harder and harder to make ends meet. We can make the rent, but our utility bills, insurance payments, groceries and the benefit payments that would normally be deducted from Albert's paycheque are getting harder to make. The last thing we wanted to do was admit that we need help, but now we are finding that we just need a little help. Anything you feel you can spare would mean the world to us and would help us focus on Albert's treatment and healing rather than stress about bills and if we can afford groceries.
Thank You for your help and
thanks for listening :)
Albert & Colleen St. Blancat
We are just starting on the road to treatment and hopefully beating this, but we know this is going to be a long hard road. We're lucky, we live in Canada where a good chunk of our medical costs are looked after. We live in Edmonton so Albert is being treated at The Cross Cancer Institute which is an excellent facility that is one of the best in Western Canada.
There are things we did not count on however. We didn't count on Albert's short term disablity coverage only being 60% of his regular salary, we didn't count on him having to be on narcotic pain killers 24/7 in order to not be in excrutiating pain from the constant migraine because of the location of the tumor. Because of that, I have to drive him to all his treatments and Dr.'s appointments. I've been missing a lot of work and my paycheque is taking the hit for it. Before all this started, I used up all my holiday and sick days when my Mother was undergoing cancer treatments over the summer. Yes, you read that right. My mother was diagnosed with cancer in March of this year and underwent 8 weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatments from the end of May till the end of July and all my holiday days were used to take her to her treatments. All my sick days were exhausted when Albert was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed. Every day I miss at work is unpaid. I'm putting in 9 and 10 hour days just to try and make up for time that I miss.
We are finding that it's getting harder and harder to make ends meet. We can make the rent, but our utility bills, insurance payments, groceries and the benefit payments that would normally be deducted from Albert's paycheque are getting harder to make. The last thing we wanted to do was admit that we need help, but now we are finding that we just need a little help. Anything you feel you can spare would mean the world to us and would help us focus on Albert's treatment and healing rather than stress about bills and if we can afford groceries.
Thank You for your help and
thanks for listening :)
Albert & Colleen St. Blancat
Organizer
Colleen St Blancat
Organizer
Edmonton, AB
