My name is Melody, though everyone calls me Mel. My husband is Chris. And this is Christopher:
Christopher is 3. He's an adorable little creature, and generally very happy. He's a budding engineer and loves all things mechanical. He's obsessed with tools, anything that has an internal combustion engine, firearms, things that explode. and all things space.
His IQ is somewhere north of 160, quite like his father. In fact he is just plain QUITE LIKE HIS FATHER. I'm not certain whether I actually conceived him, or if I just acted as surrogate to a clone.
Why is this important? Well, Christopher's father is fighting Stage IVb endocrine cancer, and it's looking to be a hard fight. Christopher is in danger of losing his father to cancer in the early years of his life.
Yaknow what hyperintelligent hyperactive little boys who are engineers and obsessed with mechanics, technology, weapons, ballistics, and things that explode grow up to be?
Either awesome forces for good, or...
And seriously, I know how Syndrome's mother must have felt, without help from his father. Trying to help a kid who is smarter than you navigate growing up and dealing with the world, while not actually being able to understand him or sufficiently supervise his activities. It keeps me up at night, thinking about trying to raise Christopher by myself.
I know Chris's stories of growing up without his father. I know the struggles. If you've heard the stories, you know why it keeps me up at night.
Which brings me back to the entire point...
Chris's health is going downhill. Sometimes it plateaus, sometimes it gets worse much faster. He's in quite a bit of pain on a daily basis.
He's scheduled for surgery on Tuesday to remove the cancer that can be removed. But... well, let him tell the story in his own words:
"Anybody got a spare $20,000 lying around that they feel like giving us so I can have life saving surgery on Tuesday as scheduled, instead of letting my cancer grow for another month (its already been almost 8 months since we found it, and months of delays before surgery) while we wait for the goddamn insurance company, surgeon, endocrinologist, PCP, and hospital sort things out? That'd be great."
Yes, a few days before surgery we're scrambling to get it paid for. I've spent the past 2 days on the phone juggling 3 different doctor's offices trying to get insurance to pay for this surgery.
If we don't get it fixed through insurance or commit to paying cash before the end of the day tomorrow the surgery will be delayed.
Any delay at this point runs the risk of killing him. Of leaving Christopher without a father.
If we have to pay cash we will. But we need help to pay cash, or otherwise pay for it until insurance gets their heads out of their rear ends and pays for the procedure. The very important, life-saving procedure.
But I couldn't even afford to buy a coffee today without help, so I can't exactly cover a huge surgery bill.
We need your help, so so much.
Help us keep Chris alive, and make sure Christopher grows up with a father.
I've still got a GoFundMe up, and PayPal to chris@chrisbyrne always works. For other options ping me at melody.byrne@gmail.com
Thanks all,
Mel
