By Chris Jalufka | 12.29.2013
Cancer sucks. It’s as simple as that. It hits and destroys more than just a body — it can damage hope, happiness. Joy. What keeps a person together at tough times are friends and family, something that no disease can take away.
Recently on Expresso Beans, a site for the art collector community, a collector named Allison posted on behalf of her husband.
From the forum —
‘I’ve been trying to write this post for the past few months, but it’s been a hard one to do.
My husband was diagnosed with Stage IV rectal cancer over the summer with no symptoms and no family history and was almost immediately dropped by his insurance (under a pre-existing condition claim) – making our current out of pocket expenses exceed $100,000 in about 4 months.
It was as simple as being totally fine one day (at least on the surface) and waking up the next to a death sentence. To be honest, we’ve kind of been ignoring the financial side of things, knowing that his chemo infusions were necessary to stay alive so we had no other option but to proceed – and emotionally, we could only take so much bad news at once.
Because he’s been unable to work since June, we’ve been selling off most of our poster collection, using financial aid for bills/rent (which has since almost completely run out), and living as frugally as possible (though trying to maintain a bit of normality – we bought a Mau Mau piece as our Christmas gift to each other and still go out to see a movie every now and then).
I’ve also been carrying on normally here and with everyday friends (almost all of whom still don’t know), simply to not be consumed by cancer more than we already are (crazily enough, another family member is battling health issues that also directly affects us, but won’t open that can of worms here). It doesn’t bother me any longer to talk about it – but I just have enjoyed the escape from it, in a sense, and it’s been nice getting to focus on something else, if only for a short time.
We finally got a kick in the pants the other day, however, with a call from collections for an early bill, and knew I had to swallow some of my pride and reach out for help.’
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Allison is setting up an auction on eBay to sell their art collection and other pieces donated by generous collectors and artists to raise money for Jonathan’s treatments.
Even if you don’t know Allison and Jonathan and just want to buy some amazing art, everything helps.
Take the time to follow the links below.
You can donate to Jonathan’s cause over at his gofundme.com page HERE.
To bid on any of the art available, visit the eBay page ‘An Auction for Jonathan‘ HERE.
The original post from Allison, Jonathan’s wife, on the forum on Expresso Beans is HERE.
To keep up with new additions and news on the auction follow Allison’s thread HERE.
The community of collectors and artists rallied and put up some great pieces for the auction. Here’s a little sample of what’s going to be available for bidding —
‘Man of Steel’ by Ken Taylor
Peace and Justice Ornament Set by Shepard Fairey
Original drawing for ‘Frankenstein’ by Laurent Durieux
‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’ by Martin Ansin
Jason Edmiston’s ‘Lo Pan’ sketch
Why? gig poster by Jay Shaw
In case you missed those links —
You can donate to Jonathan’s cause over at his gofundme.com page HERE.
To bid on any of the art available, visit the eBay page ‘An Auction for Jonathan‘ HERE.
The original post from Allison, Jonathan’s wife, on the forum on Expresso Beans is HERE.
To keep up with new additions and news on the auction follow Allison’s thread HERE.