Art's Wellness Fund

This is a campaign to help Art Rieben pay for the expenses associated with the treatment of lung Cancer.  He's fighting the fight to get well, but it ain't cheap.  After Medicare paid it's 80 percent, he's still on the hook for $6300 for his radiation treatments, as his Blue Cross Federal health care no longer pays for the "cyber knife" procedure due to ObamaCare(they paid for it before the ACA).

He lives in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, but he's being treated in Houston, Texas, which means he is paying $2100 a month to stay in a little apartment near the MD Anderson Cancer Center.  They really know how to milk you when you're desperate, don't they?

He's being taken care of by his daughter Holli (DeCamp) Cuevas in Houston, but she's still the mother of two daughters and a son back home and her husband Dion can only do so much to hold down the fort while she's away.  She's been travelling back and forth on the weekends for weeks, and his treatment is supposed to last a few months.  That's a lot of gas, and gas ain't cheap!

He's also undergoing chemotherapy, so he needs good food if he can eat it.  That also costs money, and his finances are stretched to their max. 

Once his radiation and chemo are complete, he will go home for a six week rehab period.  After that, he will go back to MD Anderson for surgery to remove part of the affected lung.  Anything you can give will certainly help out a deserving man.

Speaking of a deserving man, Art Rieben embodies that moniker.  He was born and raised in Bridgeton, New Jersey, graduating from Bridgeton High School in 1970.  After high school, he joined the Air Force, serving in Hawaii and Mississippi as a crew chief.  In Mississippi he was a crew chief on the hurricane hunter aircraft, which flew into tropical storms and hurricanes to collect meteorological data.  After the Air Force, he stayed in Mississippi, where he raised a family while working for NASA on the Space Shuttle Program.  He even won an award for excellence in quality control in 2007.  Since he retired a few years back, he's been taking it easy.  When he's not out fishing in the gulf, or grilling his catch, he's focused on being the best grandpa he can be to his four grand-daughters and his two grand-sons.  He rarely misses a soccer game, especially in the soccer complex in Hancock County that he helped constuct and maintained for years. 

Unfortunately, Art is no stranger to adversity  When Katrina made landfall in 2005, his house was in the path of destruction.  It was a total loss.  After the clean up and all the paperwork was done, with help from family and friends, and after working nights and weekends and living in a FEMA trailer for years, he finally moved into his new house in 2008.

After the tumor was discovered in his lung this past December, Art recognized he was in the fight of his life.  Our goal with this campaign is to take the financial burden off his mind and allow him to worry about getting well.  Any support you can give, financial and otherwise, is greatly appreciated by all of us who love this great guy.