About Us

About Us

Will A Heart Go Out to These


	So many need, so few want to give if/til it hurts like they need to

	WE ARE LEGION 5 boys, one with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and Epilepsy. Each of the boys need a package of socks, package of underwear, a pair of tennis-shoes, 2 pairs of jeans, and 2 shirts. Brandon (17) pant size is 36x32 shirt size is mens xL shoes/socks is mens 10 prefers boxer's, mens Large Gerald (15) pant size is 40x34 shirt size is mens xxL shoes/sock size is men's 13 wide prefers boxer's, mens xxL Jeff (13) pant size is 36x30 shirt size is men's large shoes/socks is mens 11 prefers briefs mens large Chad (11) pant size is 16 huskey shirt size is boys 18 shoes/socks is boys 6 and a half prefers briefs mens med. Travis (10) pant size is mens 36x29 shirt size is mens xL shoes/socks is boys 6 prefers boxers mens large. All of the boys like short sleeve shirts, NOT long sleeve. They like Jeans, NOT slacks, and tennis-shoes, NOT dress-up type! I can not work, as Chad has cancer, diagnosed 8-03-01 ALL w/CNS involvement. He had cranial and testicle radiation. Diagnosed with Epilepsy December 18th, 2002. Chad has missed a year and a half of schooling now. My husband Shawn is now able to get back to work more. He has missed a great deal due to Chads hospital addmissions, treatments, helping with the other children and such as that. Chads treatments for cancer will continue through Dec. 2004. Doernbecher Children's Hospital 3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road mail code: DC10C Portland, OR. 97201-3098 Dr. David Tilford, M.D. is Chads Oncologist www.caringbridge.org/wa/chadcline That is Chad's webpage and he is featured in the Cage at... http://www.xsorbit1.com/users/TILIImonkey/index.cgi?board=our_kids&action=display&num=1052614225&start=0 Thank you for this great websight and looking forward to your responce on this matter. Jeannie and Shawn Mom wants her children to grow up like she did--loving the outdoors, communing with nature, free to hike as teens long hours alone as Mom did through the Au Sable River region in Michigan's north, courtesy old logging trails and deer paths and a .22 longshot rifle in case a crazy white man came along.Free to see America, before snowmobiles and fires destroy her parks; free to select what to wear to school each day, rather than have to pull on the same holey jeans. Mom thanks God for her wonderful life as a child of the outdoors with the perks of fly-fishing grandparents and a father who owned a marina and gave the kids ski boats each summer . Mom gives thanks to Weird Al Yankovic, the human being who made it possible for her to enjoy a classy, quality adventure living on the Pacific Ocean, dining on the finest foods and seeing "how the other side lives" for a few months when she was diagnosed as terminally ill.She feels that, because of God and Weird Al, she's had a full and perfect life. May someone one day discover Florida's stained glass and dig up and report her role in its' soul-saving magic, increasing the value of her time on earth, tickling her already-Spirit-filled soul , wherever it may hover. May her shy, introspective daughter write mangas that matter since that is what she is bent on doing with her life after graduating from Full Sail College in Orlando using her Florida Pre-Paid College Tuition Mom paid for her in better days., although mom wants her to make documentaries, be as moved by the plights of those no one knows as Mom always was; may manga, then, come to matter, so that Daughter does not dessert the poor and the needy, the abused and the voiceless. May the Younger Daughter care to try to help remedy societal ills, spurred on by the inhuman treatment her family got in her childhood. May God really Be, and mean all that He's said. And as Michael Moore said, may those in power be afflicted with the worse possible diseases, tragedies, and circumstances in life --because when it's their rears on the line, we are all on our way to being saved.		WE ARE LEGION Jason Carroll Heart Transplant/Benevolence Fund Please allow us to introduce ourselves. We are the Carroll family, Jason, Sheila, Kayleigh (age 7), Maiella (age 3) & Garrett (age 15). We are a young family that has been blessed with wonderful, vibrant children and strong family support. Unfortunately, our lives seem to have taken an abrupt halt and we are being steered on a different course, one that we would not wish on anyone. In 1999, at the age of 26, Jason, my husband, best friend, and loving father to our children, was diagnosed with idiopathic cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart, causing it to grow larger as well as weaker. This in itself stunned us because nobody seemed to know why this happened to him. He was athletic, playing soccer his entire life, lifting weights, and walking our chow, Zeus, at least a mile every night. We educated ourselves on the future possibilities and came to understand the diagnoses. We changed our lives to accommodate his and our needs. We were under the impression that since he was a healthy young man that things would not get worse, maybe even better. That dream has been shattered. Between August and September of 2002, we were told that Jason has End-Stage Congestive Heart Failure. Jason had a defibrillator/pacemaker implanted in his chest to restart his heart in case of any arrhythmias (erratic beats). Jason’s heart is having an extremely difficult time pumping blood throughout his body. Jason can no longer pursue his career in Information Technology, cannot participate in any strenuous activities, and will not be able to return to a career in the near future. He cannot even play with our children. The nature of this disease is that it only gets worse, never better, and working only exacerbates the rapid pace at which his heart will deteriorate and stop pumping blood. The only thing that can "cure" this disease is a heart transplant. The beginning of the 2003 has held no hope either. Jason has been getting worse as each month passes. At first we thought he had the flu, then food poisoning. Now we know that as his heart rapidly fails, the rest of his body breaks down in order to try to save that one vital organ…his heart. He has suffered with ongoing stomach problems, vomiting for weeks on end and not being able to eat. His kidneys were beginning to fail, holding onto any and all fluids that crossed its path. The list of negative side effects of heart failure is endless. Now, he is on a permanent IV of medication that is helping his heart to continue to beat and pump blood until, hopefully, a donor is found. Jason is only 30 years old with a lifetime of experiences ahead of him. Unfortunately, his lifetime will be cut drastically short if he does not receive a heart transplant. Yes, his doctors can increase and decrease his medications to keep him "comfortable", and the defibrillator will stop cardiac arrest, but nothing can help his heart to heal and continue beating. Only the transplant can give him life. This is not something anyone can be prepared for whether 70 or 20 years old, but it is difficult for us to believe that all of our dreams may never come true. We are living on borrowed time and limited resources. Our only wish right now is to be able to provide Jason with the opportunity to continue his young life. We need him to raise his children. We will be his support and strength through these tough times and we pray that he will always be here to do the same for us. Jason does not have any benefits through his job. He has been terminated after not returning to work in 90 days due to his disability. We will eventually start receiving Social Security benefits, but that will only cover our day to day needs and living expenses. We have been advised that the anti-rejection medications that he must take for the rest of his life, cost approximately $2000 per month. We need to raise as much money as possible in order to ensure a healthy life for Jason as well as our family. Any contributions, whether monetary or services, may be made to Hope Christian Church, Benevolence Fund for Jason Carroll, 4556 Fountain Brook Drive, Waterloo, IL 62298, or directly to the Carroll family c/o: Hope Christian Church, Benevolence Fund for Jason Carroll, 506 Dartmouth Drive, O’Fallon, IL 62269. REMEMBER, ALL OF YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE! Thank you for your consideration and generosity during this unimaginable tragic time we are facing. If you have not already done so, please register to become an organ donor either through your driver’s license facility, online, or you can contact one of us to take care of this for you. Please look forward to updates regarding future fund raising opportunities as well as events that will be held in Jason’s honor. If you would like to volunteer with regards to fund raising efforts or if you have fund raising ideas, please contact Mary Carroll at (618) 407-8152 or (618) 939-2952. Blessed Be…The Carrolls

about U.S.

NO national health plan

And then I read an article in the February 2004 Natural History by Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millenium Development Goals and I realized how excited I would be that our President seems to get it about world health, if he only got it about American health and I had an income of $30,000 a year to raise my two children on instead of $9,000.

The article is called "Why Must the Poor be Sick?" It's a review of a book by Paul Farmer called Pathologies of Power:Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor.

It says Farmer has saved countless destitute patients lives in Haiti, Peru, and Russia, and has shown that effective health services, even complex medical regimens, can be put in place in impoverished communiities."His accomplishments have forcefully undercut the flimsy excuses that the rich countries have routinely offered for their inaction, as millions of people die unnecessarily each year in poor countries...farmer has 3 themes..that the poor are not the victims of their sins but of their circumstances,; instead of sitting in judgement on the sick and dying, rich countries should be helping to save them. 2. The poor can be successfully treated and cured of disease, even in the most unlikely and impoverished circumstances. 3, the human rights community should be defending the rights of the poor to health, for without the right to health, all other human rights are likely to proove empty. Nothing, farmer argues, b except practical, physical resources--in ample supply throughout the rich world--is keeping the poor world from undergoing a revolution in health.

"Farmer's moral stance is grounded in what the liberation theology movement calls a " preferential option for the poor", a principle of Roman catholic social teaching that enjoins the rich to offer dignity and material support to the poor...

But he goes on to suggest..structural violence is the key barrier to escape from poverty. In essence, he occassionally comes close to espousing a neo-Marxist theory, according to which extremem poverty persists mainly because of exploitation by the rich and powerful. (That the rich become steadily richer and the poor steadily poorer) is not true--"Haiti aside--the Haitian experience does not shed much light on the massive reduction of poverty in Asia in the past quarter century, particularly in China and India. ..or even the Dominican Republic....

contrary to the steroetypes prevalent within the bureaucraceis of rich countries and international development agencies, the destitute adn vulnerable patients that farmer comes into contact with are smart, resourceful, and absolutely intent on staying alive. They adhere even to complicated drug regimens,...Farmer's genius was to treat his HIV/AIDS and MDR-TB patients without asking permission from the official aid agencies. They would surely have said no. (using donated drugs and pilfered supplies) Farmer and his colleague Jim Kim of the Harvard medical School demonstrated clinical efficacy in treating those 2 diseases and that drug prices could be sharply reduced through aggressive negotiations.

As their successes have become apparant, Farmer, Kim, and their colleagues have increasingly focused on persuading policy makers to make a bold commitment to improved health among the world's poor. Hence, the third theme--that human rights are indivisible--that so-called social and economic rights must accompany civil and political rights. Making such a shift of emphasis would be a sea of change for a community that has traditionally been organized around the defense of civil and political rights alone.

'''"Again and again he shows that when poor people are abandoned to their economic fate, merely defending their civil rights will not keep them alive--muc less give them a chance for a dignified and prosperous life....the rich have an obligation to the poor, to help the poor stay alive in the face of structural impediments of lethal dimensions..."

And here I am, all for this , all against it an hour ago. Not understanding. I still think America should give dignity and health care to its own and then to others too but not to others while people like me go around without dental and our ears so swollen from dental caries they are llike donkey ears....

And so it is with other situations in our lives. Those who want to be successful must help their neighbors, friends, relatives be successful. Those who choose to live well must help others live well, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.Incidently, the only U.S. Presidential candidate I heard talking like this is Dennis Kucinich.