About 7 or 8 months ago, my father was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. It is hereditary. My grandmother and grandfather both had it, my grandmother died from it. Two of my great uncles did as well, along with my great-grandmother and a scattering of my dad's cousins.
My father is now on oxygen 24-7. He can't stand or walk for more than a couple minutes without breathing becoming basically impossible. He needs a double lung transplant, but we are still going through the frustratingly slow process of applying for the transplant list. We're close, hopefully, but we're still not there yet, and they can't tell us when we will be or even if we have the time to wait.
In the meantime, he's on a thousand different medications and is constantly going back and forth between East Hartford and a hospital in Boston (Brigham and Women's). They are very, very good, but it still a tremendous strain on him and the family.
Thankfully, his insurance is covering the medical costs completely, so we do not need to worry about that. The issue is everything else. My father was the only one in his household who worked. My stepmother has a host of physical problems which make it difficult for her to find a decent job, even if she wasn't occupied around the clock with taking care of him. They receive Social Security (or disability, I'm not sure how it works since I'm not an expert on this stuff) payments now that my father can no longer work, and they are also on nutrition assistance. (Which my father hates after having worked his entire life). But those payments don't begin to cover everything.
My stepsister set up a GoFundMe page to help cover things like rent, food, travel to and from Boston several times a month, utilities, and so forth. We recently had a fundraiser at the local golf course that my father was a player at for 30+ years, and it went well, but it still only covered about a month's worth of expenses.
The problem is, no one in my family has the kind of social media presence that GFM is meant to take advantage of. Most of them who even have FB only have each other on their friend lists. The GFM has stagnated thanks to that.
I won't ask anyone to donate money, I know a lot of you have to be as strapped for disposable income as I am. What I am asking is that those of you who have FB and Twitter could repost and forward and otherwise promote the GFM on your various profiles. Most people might ignore it, but the more it gets out, the more people might contribute. 10 people tell 10 people who tell 10 people...and so on. You get the point. If 200 people across the country who happen to be FB friends with people I know just toss in 5 bucks, it would be a huge thing for my dad.
It's really not easy for me to ask this of anyone, but I've known a lot of you for years. Hell, I've known a couple of you for literally over a decade. If you have no objections to social-media-badgering your drinking buddies and co-workers, I would be grateful beyond measure.
Thanks.
https://www.gofundme.com/2p2ppudg?ssid=787978989&pos=1
