Walker's cancer treatment

Walker Hartman has always been an extremely hard worker and loving family man.  He started working when he was 14 to help support his mom who was working 3 jobs.  When he was 20 years old he married the love of his life, Cecilia.  He would work long hours and at times had multiple jobs to make sure his family was well taken care of.  A few years ago the job that he loved turned into a hostile work environment.  He was forced into early retirement.  With early retirement he lost his insurance benefits.  He has always made an effort to be healthy and see the doctors when necessary.  Due to the cost of purchasing insurance privately and the knowledge that he had done what he could to keep himself healthy he made the decision to hold off for Medicare at age 65.

Here we are in 2020 in the middle of a pandemic just 6 weeks from being eligible to apply for Medicare.  On Tuesday, May 12, he went to the emergency room because he started vomiting blood.  After some testing they discovered he had bleeding on the brain.  His daughter and wife transported him to University Hospitals Main Campus in Cleveland that evening.  Because we are in a pandemic, Walkers wife, Cecilia, was not able to accompany him into the hospital.  On Wednesday morning he received the news that he had a brain tumor.  Later in the day he received the news that the reason he vomited blood was that he had a tumor in his esophagus.  Thursday morning he underwent an endoscopy to biopsy the tumor in his throat.  A short time later he underwent a 6+ hour brain surgery to remove the tumor.  During the surgery they discovered another tumor deeper in the brain.  After more testing it was revealed that he has three tumors in his esophagus and two remaining in the brain.  Friday May 15 was Walker and Cecilia's 44th wedding anniversary.  They celebrated by facetiming each other.

Walker came home from the hospital on Monday, May 18.  Most of Tuesday he spent on the phone trying to figure out the logistics of paying for his upcoming treatments.   He was also working on township business as he is a Trustee for the township of Sullivan.  Tuesday night he attended the Trustee meeting and took care of business as usual.  Nobody would have ever guessed that just the days leading up to that meeting that he was fighting for his life. 

He has just been informed that because he does not have insurance, he has to pay $100,000 up front to begin his treatments.  This man has had insurance nearly all of his working life until the last few years and was 6 weeks away from being eligible to apply for Medicare.  He believes in the American dream.  He has worked hard to earn what he has.  He fights for his township because he believes he can make it a better place.

They want to begin treatment next week. They will begin by treating the esophagus and then move to the brain.

Please help us fight for him.  Thank you.