You Can Help Make a Difference
Help others who are struggling financially while undergoing head and neck cancer treatment or recovering from this devastating disease. It is a heartwarming way to memorialize, honor, and celebrate the life of a loved one.
Your contributions directly support individuals and families and the day-to-day challenges that they experience in their fight with head and neck cancer. The funds we receive are vital to our efforts, and help us continue the fight. For those who have lost their jobs, funds from 911 4 HNC replace that lost income. For others, this financial assistance provides taxi fare to the hospital, weekly groceries, or necessary medical care for long-term effects of the disease. It is so important for these individuals to know they are not alone, that a whole community is available to them and wants to help.
A study by the University of Chicago’s School of Medicine found that 69% of head and neck cancer patients relied on one or more of the following lifestyle-altering cost-coping strategies to manage their spending: savings (62 %), borrowing money (42 %), selling possessions (25 %), and having family members work more hours (23 %). The study also identified a more subtle disruption of patients’ lives, that of perceived social isolation which they defined as a lack of social support coupled with increased loneliness. For some patients, this social isolation means more days of missed medication, more missed appointments, and longer inpatient hospital stays. The study’s findings on social isolation may apply to other cancers, but head and neck cancer is unique in the side effects that come with therapy and that affect quality of life. Effects that make a return to “normal” impossible and the creating of a “new normal” essential for long-term survival and quality of life.
“Lying supine, the technician uses my mask to bolt me to the treatment table.
After he leaves the room, I feel alone, and at first, afraid.
I see and hear the radiation machine move around me, but feel nothing.
After 2 weeks of this, the skin on my neck and the inside of my mouth becomes red, sore, and dry.
My sense of taste changes, it becomes difficult to eat.
By the end, the technician has become my trusted friend,
I cannot predict the future, but I feel less afraid, my Courage Unmasked.”
Cookie Kerxton (February 2014)
Make a contribution today!
If you prefer, you can donate by calling us at (301)-502-1389 or sending a check to the following address:
Cookie Kerxton
4550 N. Park Avenue #506
Chevy Chase, MD 20815
90% of all contributions are disbursed in grants to patients and their families.
Other Ways to Support the Fund
iGive
911 4 HNC also participates in iGive. iGive is a store rebate program that provides members with the opportunity to donate their rebate to a cause of their choice. To learn more, visit iGive today.
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