Our friend, Karen has been an active board member of our local business association, fund raising for events and orchestrating holiday activities for the entire community. She is very service oriented & is much more comfortable making donations & volunteering her time to help others than accepting relief from them, but it’s now her time.
Karen moved to our beautiful, small town, Boulder Creek, California, seventeen years ago. At that time she was working in the telecommunications industry, enjoying the health benefits and paid vacations of corporate America until they downsized in 2001.
She recreated herself as a yoga instructor & massage therapist and is blessed to have a thriving private practice. Recently, she was diagnosed with breast cancer that changed everything for her. She will be going into surgery May 1st to have a lumpectomy. She will wait for the pathology results to see what the next course of treatment will be.
Karen pays over $350 a month for a “catastrophic” insurance policy with an $8,000 deductible that caps out at $12,500. This surgery will easily absorb all of that and more. So while Karen has paid her quarterly self-employment taxes for over 10 years, she does not qualify for state disability (although she paid into it for over 27 years).
After her surgery Karen will be in convalescence and will be unable to work for 4-6 weeks, perhaps longer depending upon treatment.
Her revenue stream will dry up while she’s recuperating and the overhead of life will continue. Although she has put in applications to Bridge the Gaps (for assistance with medical coverage), she still needs help making her mortgage, office rent and paying the bills for the next few months. Please visit this “Giveforward” link, set up by her friends and donate whatever you can.
https://www.giveforward.com/fundraiser/tr92/karenmayerscancerrecoveryfund
She may want to contact the Busted Foundation to see if they can donate towards her medical bills.
http://www.bustedfoundation.org/
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