We want our chicken back!! Funds for Larry

Our so very dear friend is being challenged with his cancer treatment, ride needs and funding for this.  Please donate and we all want our "tall guy chicken" to feel the LOVE!

Here is Larry's heartfelt sharing of this unbelievable challenge he has been facing.

I know that most of you have seen me dressed as a chicken. I am a giant goofball who loves dressing up and making people smile and laugh. It's been a long time since I have worn my favorite costume, though. I am somewhat broken at this time. I usually prefer to share my health issues in person, phone or email among family and friends instead of to a larger FB audience, but my girlfriend, Marlese, and I have realized that our need for help trumps our privacy preferences. I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a type of blood/bone cancer in November 2017. Yes, I am going to survive this. At 57, I am a young MM patient; most of my fellow patients are in their 70s or 80s. My doctors also saw signs about six years ago that I might develop MM, so they've been monitoring my blood and they caught it about as early as they could.

I have to go through a lot of medical stuff before I am back to normal, though. MM has weakened my immune system and attacked my bones, causing spinal compression fractures and cracked ribs, back pain, and exhaustion. This "Tall Guy," who once stood about 6 feet 8 inches, has also lost some of his height during 2018 from bone damage, a common occurrence for MM patients. My oncologist's ultimate goal is a stem cell transplant. While there's no cure for MM, this transplant is my best hope for putting it into remission for a very long time. This past year has been spent getting the cancer level in my blood low enough to perform a successful transplant. Complications have made it a long process. We've learned not to think 'This will done by such and such a date,' because several of those dates have passed. Right now, I am about halfway through a four-month regimen of infusion immunotherapy (similar to infusion chemotherapy, but the drug targets only the cancer, not surrounding tissue), and then we hope it will be transplant time.

One of our greatest challenges in my medical treatment is transportation. I can't drive because of my pain medication or take buses because of my weakened immune system, and taxis and Uber are expensive and risky if the driver is ill. Marlese takes me to many of my appointments, and her co-workers have been amazingly supportive and flexible with her being away from her Redmond office because of my treatment, as well as her mom's medical emergency and her aunt's death last year. We're also blessed with a few friends who can take me to and/or from appointments, and a few out-of-town relatives who take time off work to help. Our friends and family aren't independently wealthy, though, so they're usually working between 7 and 5 on weekdays, when my treatment happens. We've realized that we need a larger pool of people to help.

This past year has sometimes felt like being on a solitary, strange planet for both of us and especially for me, because I have been homebound. We're grateful to friends and family who have reached out with cards, phone calls, messages, visits, care packages and meals. We're looking forward to having this chicken shake his tail feather again in 2019.

Sincerely, Still "Tall Guy" Larry and Marlese Webb