[cancer] The amazingness of people

[Cancer]

[cancer] The amazingness of people

Yesterday, Waterloo Productions launched a Kickstarter campaign to meet the over-extended budget for Lakeside [ imdb ]. More or less coincidentally, Fred Kiesche accidentally launched an informal medical expense fundraiser for me. Not coincidentally, a more formal medical fundraiser is being launched next to week to help me meet the five-figure out of pocket costs of a genetic test of my tumor tissue that may help pinpont a lifesaving treatment for me.

The response has been moving. On Twitter, on Facebook, in the blogosphere. The Waterloo Productions Kickstarter has made 95% of goal in its first day. The informal donations Fred kicked off are going into the same fund for the genetic testing, and have been generous. People are amazing. Old, close friends have contributed, as have total strangers.

I sometimes say I walk this cancer journey alone. In a strictly medical sense this is true, as no one else can take my treatments for me, and no one else can absorb my ever-mounting mortality risks. But it’s also true that I walk this journey hand in hand with thousands of people.

I said yesterday I’ll never get to heaven. That was mostly me making an atheist wise crack. But all of you are helping me remember that Sartre was wrong. Heaven is other people.

Thank you.

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Tags: Cancer, health, Personal

Posted: 6:51 am Thu January 10 2013 |

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You are reading the blog of Jay Lake, speculative fiction writer and author of hundreds of short stories, many novels, and winner of the John W. Campbell Award.
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