Update [2006-3-8 20:30:38 by pastordan]: I was surprised to have an e-mail from our community member telling that at 8:00, we'd raised $800, and this diary was still on the Recommended List. I just assumed it would have scrolled away by now.
Anyway, you all are teh cool!!!! Roxtar!!! Thank you so much!
Last fall, I asked you all to help a member of this community pay for the medical bills faced by his wife. You were incredibly generous in your response to this appeal, and all told, I think we raised somewhere over $5,000.
I need your help again.
That community member - whose name most of you would recognize - is in need again, with new medical bills. He's forwarded to me a letter he wrote to previous donors that explains the situation, which I have included below the fold. In it, he explains the situation and how much he needs. If you want more information, follow the link above.
I know that there are many appeals for your hard-earned dollars around here. And I know that some folks have a hard time donating without knowing much about the cause to which they're giving. All I can say is, you'll have to take my word for it that this is a worthy cause.
March 6, 2006
Dear Friend,
Last fall, you were one of those who generously responded to my appeal for help to pay for my wife's surgery in another country. This was surgery that fell between the cracks of insurance and would have been prohibitively expensive in the U.S. Research found that we could get first world quality care at third world prices in another country. And while that is true, and she has received the best of care, many unanticipated setbacks occurred. So in despair, I turned to Pastordan and to you, for help. And you both came through.
Thank you.
I think some people probably gave more than they could. Many also sent kinds words of hope and encouragement in emails and in comment threads as this spread across the blogopshere. I want you to know that your actions and your words changed one man's life, as well as that of his much loved wife. She had her surgery, the results were good, and she has recovered well. Miracles take many forms and I want you to know you were, and are, part of one.
At the time, we raised enough to overcome our despair and pay enough to get the most important part of the surgical series done. We got much of the way towards the final costs, only to face more setbacks. Last fall, you and I and others raised about $7,000 towards the $14,000 we estimated we would need when all the bills came due. As it turned out, there were additional setbacks since then, including an additional remedial surgery and her being forced out of her apartment, having to find a new place on short notice. Meanwhile, the final bill, which came to about $18,000, comes due at the end of this week, and there could be both medical and other troubles if she does not enough to pay her doctors, and to finish what she came there for. As of this writing, I have $5500 of the $11,000 outstanding. And so I am once again, turning to you and all of those who contributed last fall, to come through one more time, if you can. Pastordan will also make an online appeal.
But whether you can help this time or not, I want to leave you to know this:
In one sense, this is a story about one man's struggle to help his wife at a great distance in the face of personal adversity, including the need to preserve her acute sense of privacy. But it is also a story of how the struggle has changed me. Thanks to the advantages of good health, good education, and other social advantages as a young man, I never knew what the bottom really looked like; felt like. But I have glimpsed it; and have also experienced the overwhelming kindness and generosity of friends and strangers in a way that has changed my life.
I see myself dedicating much more of my life to helping those who know the bottom far better than I: people with no one to reach out to; people with far less hope than I. I know my wife feels the same way. The poverty she sees every day where she is, is something that has changed her, at least as much as all of this has changed me. She does what she can to help. But the real help is in the future, with her new found health and a new, or renewed sense of what is important in life. Exactly what form what we will do will take, I don't know yet. (Suggestions welcome!) But I do know that the way that you have touched my life, has made me understand my own need to touch the lives others far more than I have. And I thank you for that. And I want you to know that we all have within our reach, far more knowledge, skills, access to resources and resourcefulness to make a difference than we realize. Age and experience grant many of us that much. But this past year has given me a very different view of the world, and my own role in it. I want to thank you for your role in that too.
Please send what you can via Fund for Hope at paypal. <http://www.paypal.com>
How to do it: To use Pay Pal (which is part of E-Bay) which is a secure way of sending and receiving money online, you need to regisgter, and it will give you several options. When you visit the Pay Pal home page, on the left you will see a column that says "buyers." Click on "send money." On the next page you will also see a link to "send money." Follow the pretty self-explanatory links from there. All you will need, is this email address. (Fundforhope@gmail.com )
I will send out updates as appropriate.
Thanks.
Please give generously. This community can be about so much more than hating on the Republican party.