Jim & Mimi --Target: Lymphoma

Hi! We are Mimi and Jim Breneman, partners in life's journey. We would like to ask for your help in getting through Jim's cancer treatment and getting back on our feet financially.

Although our health insurance covers part of treatment, we are still left with hefty bills. Our hope is that the generous support we receive can help us cover most of our share of the costs for chemotherapy, hospitalizations and remedial radiation treatments. Your support would make a very significant difference.

Nothing could have prepared us for the devastating news we received a few months ago: Jim was diagnosed with Burkitt Lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects the immune system. It is rare, aggressive and fast growing, but it also responds well to strong and timely treatment.

Like everyone else, we were in the process of adjusting to the impact of the COVID pandemic, when this hit us. Living in Costa Rica, far from both sides of the family, added further layers of physical, emotional, and financial exhaustion and vulnerability.

Jim began to feel unwell in early July. Tests showed he had multiple ulcers. But watching our doctor’s expression of concern, we knew something else was going on. It still seems quite surreal, the uncertainty as we waited for the diagnosis, the shock when we found out that it was lymphoma (stage III). Then starting to tell our families and close friends, and suddenly we were right in the middle of chemotherapy. Everything happened very quickly: 10 days from the first tests to the start of treatment.

Jim has now completed six cycles of chemotherapy. The outlook is positive, but it will take some more testing and radiation therapy to fully beat lymphona. The good news is that we are more than half way there!

All of this has clearly disrupted both our lives, but we are doing our best to stay strong and positive, and to try to keep up with our responsibilities.

Along the way we have received many rather unexpected gifts. As a friend commented early on, this is an opportunity to learn and grow together, as a form of community that is spread out geographically, but very supportive and present in our day to day lives.

One of the first lessons has been about trust, to loosen our sense of self-sufficiency and control and just accept helping hands and words. We have been truly blessed by the many ways in which people have made their presence felt: a surprise pizza delivery, fruit and vegetables from the farmers' market, Whatsapp mesages asking us how we are holding up, surprise donations, a jar of honey and a box of tea, stylish caps for Jim's bare head, hot dinners for Mimi during Jim's hospital stays, and so on. Those words and actions, large and small, from close by or far away, really lift our spirits and give us strength to keep going.

We are also very grateful for a team of amazing doctors who work so well together, one focusing on the lymphoma treatment itself --she's quite the strategist, always encouraging and willing to answer all our weird questions-- and the other looking at other parts of the picture: the nutritional, emotional, family side of things --he asks questions, pokes at Jim’s toes and ankles, listens carefully, and has a wicked sense of humor. Both are extremely professional, while also very human and accessible.

We have also been tremendously encouraged by so many messages of prayer and support, and requests that we share other ways you can support us.

The truth is we can't go it alone. This is something we needed and should have learned much sooner in life. But we are also recognizing how even through the limitations, there are creative ways to regain a sense of supportive togetherness and connection which many of us have been searching for. Did we mention the surprise pizza delivery? And it will certainly influence how, from now on, we become more attentive to how others are coping with events that occur in their lives.

One area in which your help would have a big impact is with medical expenses. Each chemotherapy cycle involved a 5 day hospital stay, so we are left with some hefty bills to recover from --$4000-5000 per cycle.

Would YOU consider helping us with this financial burden? Any amount, large or small, gets us closer to reaching our goal of beating cancer and getting fully back on our feet, physically, emotionally and financially.

Gratefully

Jim & Mimi Breneman