Will You Be There for Stella?
When patients are diagnosed with cancer, the last thing they should have to worry about is money. That’s why the HealthWell Foundation is planning to open the Emergency Cancer Relief Fund (ECRF). This Fund is something completely new and different – created specifically to help people with expenses not covered under HealthWell’s traditional copay fund structure.
Paul DeMiglio
For example, HealthWell will be able to grant as little as $25 to help someone pay for anti-nausea medicine and larger grants for things such as surgical expenses and diagnostic testing that piled up during their treatment. HealthWell has provided direct financial assistance so that more than 70,000 insured people living with cancer can afford their medical treatments.
Once open, ECRF will enable HealthWell to continue helping even more cancer patients just like Stella — wife, mother and caregiver from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. As Stella describes in her letter below, HealthWell’s grant was exactly what she needed to help her afford her treatments and continue caring for her family:
Dear Friends,
The past two years have been pretty bad for my husband and me. On February 21, 2011 we lost our only daughter to Scleroderma – a devastating disease that shrunk her skin, took her bones, her kidneys, her heart and finally her life – even though she had the best medical care available in Atlanta, GA.
We didn’t think things could ever be that bad again but, in July of that year, I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma – Type B. In August, our son (and only remaining child) was diagnosed with Stage IV prostate cancer. We feared that we would lose both our children in the same year; however, he was treated very aggressively with radiation and hormones and now is in remission.
My husband turned 90 this year and has bladder cancer, prostate cancer, he just had a melanoma removed from his face and two weeks later a squamous cell carcinoma was removed from his arm. The tests showed complete removal (how thankful we are for that). So far, we have been able to keep up with the copays for everything until non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma struck me. Without your generous support the winter of 2011 and June of 2012, I could not even have begun my treatment. But the Lord is good! He led me to a great medical team who led me to you kind folks and my treatment began in October 2011. I am now scheduled for four treatments, beginning in May and another four beginning in November, after which my doctor thinks I won’t need any more for a while.
Could you possibly help me with the series of treatments? I just have to get well. My husband is 90 years old and besides the cancer in various parts of his body, he is losing his eye sight, his memory (it is bad) and his hearing. There is no one else to take care of him. I am the last living of my family and he has one sis
ter who is in worse health than he is. Please! Let me know if you can help me in any amount. I will be eternally grateful. Please forgive the length of this letter. When I began writing, it just all poured out. I have no one to talk to about this, so thanks for listening.
Stella – Baton Rouge, LA
P.S. Please accept my meager check in the amount of $25.00. I hope there will be more available in time.
Patients just like Stella who had nowhere else to turn are counting on HealthWell for financial relief right now. But for ECRF to open, we must raise $50,000 and have a long way to go before we hit our goal. So far we’ve raised $20,640 but aren’t there yet. Can we count of you to help us reach out goal?
Click here to learn about ECRF, and donate whatever you can — $5, $10, $25 — so we can make life easier for more patients who are struggling to survive.