Joe Needs Your Help During Chemo

Hi, I'm Joe. I was recently diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer with liver metastasis. My wife, Elizabeth (also known as T), and I need help with moving and living expenses.

I am an IT specialist who works as in independent contractor. While I do have medical insurance which should help cover most of the actual medical expenses, I don't get paid time off. When I am unable to work, expenses will start to pile up.

I'm expecting my billable hours to be reduced very soon due to starting treatment. My team of physicians and surgeons are moving quickly and aggressively and they think they will have enough test results back to start chemo before the end of March. I have an appointment next week for them to surgically install the port for the chemo administration.

We're still waiting on many results from imaging and pathology, but the treatment course that is currently planned is to do these first 3 months of chemo and then rescan both the liver and the colon. Then they will decide when and how to do the surgery/surgeries to take out the masses.

All of this news came right after discovering we need to find a new place to live. Our landlord has decided to sell our house and will not be renewing our lease, so we have to be out by May 30.

I was going to do most of the actual moving myself since my wife has a chronic illness that will make her physical involvement difficult, but the chemotherapy is expected to go right through our window to move. With both of us struggling to pack and haul, we're going to need to hire much more help than initially planned; help for both the organization and packing stages as well as the actual move.

Your funds will go to make sure we can secure a place to live in time, make the move go more smoothly, and then provide us with some amount of rent cushion while my income is compromised during my treatments and surgery recovery. We hope to raise $5,000 by April 30 (in time to assist with the move) and the rest is to assist with the loss of income for the rest of the year.

I appreciate any assistance you can provide.