Penny and Orrin Freeman
Donation protected
Family and friends, asking for help is incredibly difficult, but my mom and her husband, Penny and Orrin Freeman, are in need. Your contributions will go directly to ensuring that Orrin receives the care he needs to recover from a series of spinal infections that have caused him to lose the ability to walk, and for my Mom to be able to provide for his care while she undergoes chemotherapy for Stage 3 colon cancer.
Mom and Orrin
Mom and Orrin met while they were both students at USC in the early 1970s. Orrin was a baseball player, and Mom was a musical theater actress in the theater program. While at USC, Orrin helped the team to 4 national championships, and is currently in the USC sports program hall of fame. Mom performed in numerous productions while at USC, including the West Coast premiere of The Who’s rock opera Tommy.
After college, Orrin became a baseball coach. He coached at UC Santa Barbara, San Francisco State, and Sonoma State, before becoming a scout for the MLB. Orrin joined the Florida Marlins as a scout at the team’s inception in 1991 and has been with the team ever since. In his 27 years as a member of the Marlin’s franchise, he has helped the team win two world series titles and, in 2014, was awarded both Scout of the Year by Major League Baseball and received a lifetime achievement award from the Major League Baseball Scouting Association.
After college, Mom graduated from law school and earned her Masters degree in Education and School Administration. She taught elementary school for 25 years in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and also became a Vice Principal and Principal at several schools before retiring in 2007. She continued to act and sing, performing with the Riverside Master Chorale, the Redlands Footlighters, the Riverside Community Theater, and many other productions.
30 years after dating while at USC, Mom and Orrin reconnected, and were married in 2007.
Orrin
In January of 2018, mom found Orrin incapacitated in his armchair. A lifelong diabetic, Orrin’s blood pressure had spiked and metastasized into a bacterial infection in his spine. He was hospitalized and intubated into a medical coma. Doctor’s found that he was too ill to receive an operation that would have given him a good chance of walking again, and in the meantime his insurance kept moving him from facility to facility. He can only be transported via medical transport (ambulance), and has been moved between the hospital, Skilled Nursing Facilities, and Assisted Living Facilities since January. His insurance also had him discharged from his Skilled Nursing Facility, determining that he was not making sufficient progress towards recovery due to “a possible problem with his brain”.
Additionally, Orrin faces a difficult decision: he can undergo a full back reconstructive surgery due to the extensive damage done to his back by infection. This is incredibly risky, but, if successful, would give him a much better change of walking again. If it fails, it would leave him in extensive pain without regaining the ability to walk. The other option is a spinal fusion procedure, which would potentially greatly reduce the amount of pain he is in, but would likely confine him to a wheelchair.
Because of his condition, we are unsure whether or not Orrin will be able to return to work. Though he has been in Major League Baseball since 1982 and is entitled to a pension upon retirement, he must work until he is 70 to receive his full pension. He is currently 68 and a half, and may never work again, so while he is able to draw from his pension, he must do so at -48% what he would have received if he’d worked until the retirement age of 70.
Mom
My mom, Penny Freeman, has been Orrin’s caregiver and advocate since the day he entered the hospital. She’s there nearly every day, making arrangements, ensuring he’s attended to, and arranging his transportation to and from doctor’s appointments and various facilities via ambulance. In March 2018, that all changed.
In March 2018, Mom was hospitalized in need of a blood transfusion. Though the transfusion initially helped, a couple weeks later she was hospitalized a second time. A diagnostic revealed that she had Stage 3 Colon Cancer, and though she had surgery to remove the cancerous growth in the colon, a biopsy revealed that the cancer had spread and she would need to undergo chemotherapy. She starts chemo on June 5th, and will have to be infused every two weeks until November. While her oncologist is confident that the chemotherapy will eradicate her cancer, the chemo itself will weaken her body and seriously lower her ability to fight off sickness and infection during the 5 months of treatment.
While doctors had initially thought they had the infection under control, a recent test revealed that Orrin has a resurgence of infection in his spine. Because chemotherapy will drastically compromise her immune system, she is not allowed to be near Orrin until the infection is under control, meaning she cannot accompany him to doctor’s appointments.
The Need
Orrin has exhausted his skilled nursing benefit through his insurance plan, so last month they had to pay $13,000 cash for him to be cared for. Because Mom is not allowed to be near Orrin while her immune system is compromised, he has been moved to an assisted living facility at a rate of nearly $6,000 a month. Because he is not able to ambulate or walk, or even sit up without intense pain, he has to be transported to and from doctor's appointments via ambulance, and since mom cannot accompany him, they must also pay someone to accompany him to and from doctor's appointments, all of this also out of pocket. This arrangement will have to continue for the foreseeable future. They are trying to keep their heads above water, while navigating the treatment and hopeful recovery process of their respective ailments.
It has been a year marked by personal catastrophe after personal catastrophe. With both Mom and Orrin suffering serious, life-threatening health complications in the same year, compounded by a serious change in financial circumstances, has made their plan to “weather the storm” not exactly go to plan. Life, as they knew it, has changed drastically in such a short period of time, and at the moment they are in survival mode, trying to get both of them the care they need while ensuring they have the proper environment for recovery.
Thank you again for taking the time to read this and for your contributions.
Mom and Orrin
Mom and Orrin met while they were both students at USC in the early 1970s. Orrin was a baseball player, and Mom was a musical theater actress in the theater program. While at USC, Orrin helped the team to 4 national championships, and is currently in the USC sports program hall of fame. Mom performed in numerous productions while at USC, including the West Coast premiere of The Who’s rock opera Tommy.
After college, Orrin became a baseball coach. He coached at UC Santa Barbara, San Francisco State, and Sonoma State, before becoming a scout for the MLB. Orrin joined the Florida Marlins as a scout at the team’s inception in 1991 and has been with the team ever since. In his 27 years as a member of the Marlin’s franchise, he has helped the team win two world series titles and, in 2014, was awarded both Scout of the Year by Major League Baseball and received a lifetime achievement award from the Major League Baseball Scouting Association.
After college, Mom graduated from law school and earned her Masters degree in Education and School Administration. She taught elementary school for 25 years in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and also became a Vice Principal and Principal at several schools before retiring in 2007. She continued to act and sing, performing with the Riverside Master Chorale, the Redlands Footlighters, the Riverside Community Theater, and many other productions.
30 years after dating while at USC, Mom and Orrin reconnected, and were married in 2007.
Orrin
In January of 2018, mom found Orrin incapacitated in his armchair. A lifelong diabetic, Orrin’s blood pressure had spiked and metastasized into a bacterial infection in his spine. He was hospitalized and intubated into a medical coma. Doctor’s found that he was too ill to receive an operation that would have given him a good chance of walking again, and in the meantime his insurance kept moving him from facility to facility. He can only be transported via medical transport (ambulance), and has been moved between the hospital, Skilled Nursing Facilities, and Assisted Living Facilities since January. His insurance also had him discharged from his Skilled Nursing Facility, determining that he was not making sufficient progress towards recovery due to “a possible problem with his brain”.
Additionally, Orrin faces a difficult decision: he can undergo a full back reconstructive surgery due to the extensive damage done to his back by infection. This is incredibly risky, but, if successful, would give him a much better change of walking again. If it fails, it would leave him in extensive pain without regaining the ability to walk. The other option is a spinal fusion procedure, which would potentially greatly reduce the amount of pain he is in, but would likely confine him to a wheelchair.
Because of his condition, we are unsure whether or not Orrin will be able to return to work. Though he has been in Major League Baseball since 1982 and is entitled to a pension upon retirement, he must work until he is 70 to receive his full pension. He is currently 68 and a half, and may never work again, so while he is able to draw from his pension, he must do so at -48% what he would have received if he’d worked until the retirement age of 70.
Mom
My mom, Penny Freeman, has been Orrin’s caregiver and advocate since the day he entered the hospital. She’s there nearly every day, making arrangements, ensuring he’s attended to, and arranging his transportation to and from doctor’s appointments and various facilities via ambulance. In March 2018, that all changed.
In March 2018, Mom was hospitalized in need of a blood transfusion. Though the transfusion initially helped, a couple weeks later she was hospitalized a second time. A diagnostic revealed that she had Stage 3 Colon Cancer, and though she had surgery to remove the cancerous growth in the colon, a biopsy revealed that the cancer had spread and she would need to undergo chemotherapy. She starts chemo on June 5th, and will have to be infused every two weeks until November. While her oncologist is confident that the chemotherapy will eradicate her cancer, the chemo itself will weaken her body and seriously lower her ability to fight off sickness and infection during the 5 months of treatment.
While doctors had initially thought they had the infection under control, a recent test revealed that Orrin has a resurgence of infection in his spine. Because chemotherapy will drastically compromise her immune system, she is not allowed to be near Orrin until the infection is under control, meaning she cannot accompany him to doctor’s appointments.
The Need
Orrin has exhausted his skilled nursing benefit through his insurance plan, so last month they had to pay $13,000 cash for him to be cared for. Because Mom is not allowed to be near Orrin while her immune system is compromised, he has been moved to an assisted living facility at a rate of nearly $6,000 a month. Because he is not able to ambulate or walk, or even sit up without intense pain, he has to be transported to and from doctor's appointments via ambulance, and since mom cannot accompany him, they must also pay someone to accompany him to and from doctor's appointments, all of this also out of pocket. This arrangement will have to continue for the foreseeable future. They are trying to keep their heads above water, while navigating the treatment and hopeful recovery process of their respective ailments.
It has been a year marked by personal catastrophe after personal catastrophe. With both Mom and Orrin suffering serious, life-threatening health complications in the same year, compounded by a serious change in financial circumstances, has made their plan to “weather the storm” not exactly go to plan. Life, as they knew it, has changed drastically in such a short period of time, and at the moment they are in survival mode, trying to get both of them the care they need while ensuring they have the proper environment for recovery.
Thank you again for taking the time to read this and for your contributions.
Organizer and beneficiary
Charlie Mihelich
Organizer
Los Angeles, CA
Penelope M Freeman
Beneficiary