The $60,000.00 Cuppa Coffee

We have some friends who are going through a very difficult time in their lives right now.  They’re a young couple with two small children, and E  has cancer. Unfortunately neither of their families has been terribly supportive; the good news is that they have lots of friends who love them and are willing to do anything necessary to help them out.  We consider ourselves fortunate to be among those friends.

E  has had a difficult time with the chemotherapy drugs.  His body has had some odd (skin blistering and falling off) and violent (excessive vomiting) reactions and the medication has been changed several time.  M has been struggling trying to get everything done.  She’s a full-time teacher, mom and wife, while honing her skills as a part-time researcher (trying to glean as much helpful information about the cancer) and taxi driver trying to get her hubby back and forth to chemo treatments.  We have another friend who recently retired and has been happy to transport E back and forth to appointments and such.

The other day M came flying into the office with a strangely irritated look on her face.  She told me that they’d received their bill in the mail for the first two months of E ‘s chemo; $120,000.00!  She said she nearly passed when she opened the envelope.  Thankfully they have insurance, so they don’t have to pay this amount but … WOW.  She was very animated as she told me about the bill and added a good dose of humor along the way.  She mentioned that they’d included a tear-off section on the bill where you could enter your credit card information and send it back.  Yeah, right!  I told her it was too bad she couldn’t send it back with an audible laugh track.  Then she said she knew how she’d get back at them.  She said that she noticed that they offer free coffee in the waiting room while you’re waiting for your patient to finish their treatment.  With a twinkle in her eye she said that she was going to tell our friend N to drink as much coffee as she possibly could each time she took E in for a treatment.

Yep.  That’ll do it!