I haven’t paid a lot of attention to my feeds over the past week.
It’s Lung Cancer.
Stage III, inoperable. Median survival prognosis: One year after diagnosis.
Which is, as it turns out, the reason I haven’t been accomplishing much, including posting here and making progress on the sequel to Temporary Duty. The details are complicated, and I don’t have the energy to fully explain.
Medical insurance? Of course not. My doctor says it doesn’t matter much. Going full-bag on treatment, chemo and radiation and all that, for this particular cancer might, on average, add six months to the survival time at massive expense — and the quality of life for that additional half year would be miserable.
The only thing I could really ask for is an oxygen machine. I’m continually short of breath, and my blood oxygen hovers at the low end of the “satisfactory” scale, around 91 or 92. That means I don’t think or react as clearly or as quickly as I did, which makes it difficult to accomplish intellectual tasks like writing. There are also a couple of things on my “bucket list” that I’d really rather not do without, and one of them is one last visit to my brother’s grave — which is at 12,000 ft. MSL, more or less. At my current ability to breathe, that’s just plain out of the question. […]
Money needed… because Temporary Duty sold so well, the IRS took a nice chunk (and wants another $1,555 before July 15th) and Social Security came along behind to inform me that they’re taking back $10K by simply not sending checks, starting in September. I have stuff around the place I can sell, not to mention the place itself, so I won’t starve, but there’s gonna be a lot fewer luxuries for a while.
I hit Jeff’s tip jar last night, Ric’s this morning. I’m hoping you all can do the same.
After I sent along the news to Insty, Glenn was good enough to give prominent placement to the call for contributions. I’ve been in contact with Ric through email — and we’ve discussed this here in the comments — and he is overwhelmed with the outpouring of support he’s received.
Personally, I didn’t feel right putting up a post myself here. To me, Ric has always struck me as the kind of person who wouldn’t want such a very public fuss made over him by his online friends; a link from Insty, I figured, in addition to being better for him financially, is also something of a different kind of tribute.
I’m sorry if some of you hadn’t heard the news. But do know that I’ve been in email contact with a number of people, including Glenn, and that we’ve been doing what we can to help Ric out.
the IRS needs to find something better to do than harass cancer patients I think
Thanks to Chief Justice Roberts, the IRS is now in charge of treating and harassing cancer patients….