When Steven Miles entered the work force many years ago his goal was to help those in need. In particular, those people in the final days of their lives. He started working in a nursing home while attending college and studying death and dying. He then moved on to work in hospice care, a branch of healthcare that provides palliative and comfort care to those with a terminal diagnosis and prognosis through a team of medical professionals. Hospice provides medication, emotional and spiritual support to both patients and their family and friends, and hands on physical care all designed to enhance quality of life. Steven did this work for several years. His career in healthcare went beyond hospice care though. While living in Seattle he worked at a hospital as a CNA in their orthopedic spinal unit, as an emergency room technician and briefly as a paramedic. Steven's passion for helping those who are suffering motivated him to take this life path and it enriched his life. But Steven, missing friends and family, decided to move back to Eugene, Oregon to pursue another of his life's passions. He delights in landscaping and home and garden design and, as everyone around him quickly discovered, he had an astonishing talent of transforming the most mundane, bleak spaces into havens for nature and serenity. He worked as a private Garden Consultant and began to cultivate his love for animals by adopting a menagerie made up of geese, ducks, peacocks, chickens, pheasants, quail, finches, parakeets, cats, dogs and koi – all the while tending to his beautiful personal garden. But then Steven's life took a drastic turn on a visit to friends in Seattle in 2009. He developed severe abdominal pain and was taken to the hospital only to learn he had diverticulosis, a disease which effects the large intestine. After a nine day stay he returned to Eugene to undergo surgery, the most common treatment for the disease in its acute stage. Steven was told the surgery would take about two and a half hours and leave two small holes from a 1-2 inch incision. Six hours later he woke up to find an incision from his rib cage to his groin and was told he had to have a foot of his large intestines removed. If that wasn't enough of a blow, while recovering from surgery he suffered a violent coughing spell that tore open his gut preventing full closure of his wound. They operated again and left him on a pump for 2 weeks until the wound could heal. He was left open to infections that could be life threatening and caused dramatic weight loss. He received a third surgery to close his abdomen and was left with a colostomy bag, a device designed to allow waste to leave the body for the prevention of infection. During his first 10 days at home he was rushed to the ER 5 times because he had no insurance to pay for in home care. He hopes to have another corrective surgery by February 2011 that will remove the colostomy bag and reconnect his insides. Steven’s life has been completely turned upside down and he has been left unable to work. He no longer has the stamina to do his beloved gardening and he has to get help to tend to his animals. He is unable to lift more than fifteen pounds and the simplest of things in life take him extra effort and time to complete. Bathing alone takes him an hour and a half. Eight hours of work could take him weeks. Yet despite all of this he has maintained an inner strength and courage that encourages all around him. On top of all his health challenges Steven faces something that so many Americans are faced with today. He has exhausted his finances and is now forced to depend on support from the state. It is incredibly difficult for him to accept this in the first place but to add insult to injury in February of 2009 he applied for benefits and was denied. He appealed and was denied again. He has retained legal assistance and is currently in the process of appealing again. But in the meantime, his rent has gone unpaid for seven months and his bills are piling up. Luckily, he has an understanding landlord and has been given some assistance for electricity and food for himself and his animals. Steven would never ask for a hand out. He would never expect one and feels ashamed to be in this situation. But through the encouragement of his friends he has reluctantly allowed us to work towards assisting him through this rough patch in his life. We believe that all people should have healthcare and that in his case, a man who has devoted his life in selflessly helping others, he deserves to be treated with dignity and support. All Steven wants is a chance to recover, a chance to be of service again, a chance to create gardens that feed the soul again. Please consider helping us help him. We want to do our part in restoring compassion and kindness to America even if it just one person at a time. And this time it is for a person called Steven. Thank you and God bless you for your giving heart! (The real goal is $7500)