DU's Finest Hours

[SoCalDem]

These threads are LONG..but it's exciting to see how we pulled together to help Andy. He lost his war,but we all stood by him in the battle..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3608367
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=213x520
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=3204768&mesg_id=3204768
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3561640&mesg_id=3584371&page=
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3588998

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Thank you!

And please allow me to once again this evening tell those who accused him of being scam artist

FUCK YOU AND MAY YOU BURN SLOWLY IN HELL FOR AN ETERNITY.

[TK421]

2. you're being too nice there...the scumbags involved know what they said was

wrong, and they went along with it anyway.

fucking scumbags

[Suich]

3. Thanks for posting this!

I'd forgotten how intense it was!

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[EFerrari]

9. It was insane because the hospital kept shortening the deadline.

I'll never forget how DU came together. It was astonishing.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Thank you for this.

It's good to help one-another.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. Those were amazing threads!

I was new on DU at the time, and I was so caught up in it...

I went on vacation in June/July, and when I got back, he was gone. I was heart-broken and horrified.

Thank you for posting these, my dear SoCalDem!

:hug:

[tavalon]

7. His memorial was beautiful and DUers from all over came to Seattle for it

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. Yes. And I recall that Will Pitt gave the eulogy...

[ClayZ]

6. K and R

[Solly Mack]

10. K&R

[hfojvt]

11. I remember some contentiousness even then though

there were various conflicting stories about the surgery. Was it a whipple procedure or not, etc. WilliamPitt posted an angry thread wondering if he was lied to. I wondered why the goalposts moved. First, the goal was to raise $25,000. When that was reached in about two days, suddenly we had to raise $50,000. What happened there? Much later I heard that he could have had the surgery in Washington, paid for by the state program, but chose instead to goto Johns Hopkins. It was not all unity and flowers, although there did seem to be more 'real world' connections among DU than there is now. People visited and phoned each other. Maybe they still do, among verious groups here.

also kinda sad to see those old names, many of whom are no longer around. Flyarm and sweetheart, both of whom I remember, now sporting granite cookies. Merh and theboss, still with open accounts, but no longer actively posting, and I am sure there are others since I only skimmed the threads.

[EFerrari]

12. When I first contacted John Hopkins

I was told he needed half the fee up front. When I called them back that Monday, meeting their deadline, I was told he needed all of it. So, the goalposts did in fact move. That wasn't your imagination. It's likely that the first person I talked to was mistaken because we later found out that cash patients are expected to have the whole amount up front but that isn't what I was told initially.

And Andy had been misdiagnosed twice already in Washington. The system there cost him weeks he didn't have.

[hootinholler]

13. Oh Beth

:hug:

Not to pick a nit, but it's Johns Hopkins. I know people working there and policy confusion like that isn't rare.

Andy's case is emblematic regarding why we need universal healthcare.

I wonder how Ted is getting along.

-Hoot

[EFerrari]

14. Oops, sorry. n/t

[SoCalDem]

15. Still, the people who donated, did it of their own free will

and people who did not want to, were not obligated to do so.

Often in a medical crisis, people choose one place over another, even though one is closer geographically.

When our child needed extreme medical care, we chose Mayo Clinic because we felt in our bones that he would get the latest cutting-edge care there. Lucky for us, our medical insurance covered it. Had we not been so lucky, who knows how his treatment would have turned out.

As we moved farther and farther away, we were finally forced (by geography and 2 other small children) to get follow up care away from Mayo Clinic (and by then HMOs had reared their ugly heads), but when then it was comforting to know that some of the textbooks his "new" doctors referred to were written by his Mayo doctors, and a few of them had actually been trained by his Mayo doctors.

Andy & his referring doctors thought Johns Hopkins was the place he needed to be, and we took it upon ourselves to help him get there.