From: Emerald and Alexis

Thank you for visiting our project, we really appreciate you!

For those of you who don't know us, my name is Emerald and this is my sister Alexis. For almost three years we have watched our Dad courageuosly fight a losing war against a specific type of virus that is slowly destroying him. This particular virus is a "lipid coated" virus that often turns the damage it does into different forms of cancer as well, which he has already beaten once. (Go DAD!)

Some of these viruses are: West Nile, SARS, Hep C, some forms of Lukemia and AIDS, Influeza, and about a dozen others. The coating protects the virus and makes it almost impossible to treat effectively.

We have both been with our Dad through chemo, aggressive medicine that made him deathly sick and most recently a surgery too.

Alexis and I have made and pre-packaged special meals for him, helped him with stuff he was no longer able to do, and really just tried to be there for him as much as we could. It's not a chore. We were always very close to our Dad, but this has brought us to whole new level of closeness few people ever get to experience, and we're grateful for that.

We have watched as this disease took away everything he worked for his entire life. He literally has us, and that's it. He has lost everything but his dignity that he holds onto pretty tight so far. Throughout ALL of this Dad has kept his optimistic outlook on it all and often kept our chin up along with his. He has never lost his sense of humor and will always finds the funny side of the worst situations ever. He makes us laugh when we want to cry. It's one of his great strengths and he uses it well. He told us once that Forrest Gump was the real secret to life because he was always too stupid to quit!

There IS A Cure available now. It's a new treatment by a company named, Gilead-Sciences. It has over a 97% cure rate against all the viruses it's been tested against- BUT WE CAN'T GET IT!

It's under Congressional investigation and that stopped everything. The reason it's under investigation? Because they have made it available to more than 28 different countries for a total of $5,000 for the entire 12 week treatment, but are charging Americans over $90,000 for the same thing! No insurance companies will touch it because of the investigation and even the VA hospital is not expected to be approved for it until after they're through or late next year???

Our only option is to send Dad to another country for the treatment, and that's what this project is all about.

Dad is long time world traveler so we asked him where he would go for treatment if he could. Ecuador was his first choice. They have better state of the art medical facilities than we do, healthcare costs about 10% of what it does here, the cost of living is inexpensive and there are a lot of American and British expatriates retired there who are willing to help him while he's there.

Please Help Us Get Him There by September So He Can Be Back And Cured For The Holidays! That Would Be The Greatest Present EVER!

We can do this with your help...

• Cost to get Dad treatment there:
• $5,000 for the treatment--as a non-resident he won't have their health insurance and will have to pay full price.
• $3,000 cost of living expenses--he will have to stay there for at least 3 months and will need room/board/food while there.
• $230 Filing fee for Visa exception extended stay
• $750 Dr. visits and specialists who will have to prescribe and monitor treatment
• $1,120 Round trip flight (As of right now)
• $600 Misc. transporatation to and from Dr. clinics/hospital and should cover all lab work as well.

That's not even as much as the co-pay would be here IF we can ever get it!! TOTAL = $10,700

Please help us raise this before September so we can finally have our Dad back,....we really miss him and just want him to be cured once and for all.

Our Dad before all this:                                         And Now:

From Alexis:

"I will be graduating high school next year and leaving to attend medical school. I really want my Dad to be there for that, and right now we just don't know."

From Emerald:

"I am getting married in October of next year and would love to know that my Dad will be there to walk me down the isle. Please help us make that happen!"

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for helping!

Emerald and Alexis