Gobsmacked

Looking for superlatives to use here, but none are enough! Yesterday’s blogger auction raised $23,210, combined with $3,222 in cash donations to make a total of $26,432. I am blown. away. I fully expected the blogging community to come together and raise a good chunk of change, but never dreamed that it could reach this level.

I was running on a high all day yesterday watching the bids come through and keeping up on Twitter. My family and I were all texting each other with updates. You didn’t just save me, but you saved my family. The predicted amount for my chemotherapy drugs is $30,000 if I have to do the full 6 months. This covers almost all of it. That means my retired mother doesn’t have to cash in her RRSPs. My Nana doesn’t have to give up her “just in case” nursing home savings. I don’t have to work full-time when my doctors have advised me against it.

It doesn’t end here however. I am still going to work at getting the drug assistance my province owes me. This gives me a cushion while I go through the bureaucratic minefield of getting there. I originally wanted to give the remaining funds to buying items for the kitchen and family room in the oncology ward that I lived in for one month. But maybe this means we could renovate to give them a proper kitchen! I met SO many amazing people fighting cancer in that hospital, they and their visiting families certainly don’t deserve to eat food like this. I will be blogging all the details about where the money goes.

If you’d like to listen to the radio interview I did with the local CBC station yesterday morning, click here. If you’re a New Brunswicker, I encourage you to write in and tell them your thoughts on the province’s lack of catastrophic drug coverage.

Janetha did an interview with Fitness Magazine about the fundraiser, which you can read here.

Finally, I’m on Freshly Pressed!! How cool is that!?

I really wish I could send a thank you card and gift to every single person who participated in this fundraiser. To the people who bid, who donated items, who donated their money, who blogged about it and tweeted about it, to the hard working bloggers who spent DAYS organizing this, you know who you are! Thank you will never be enough, but your kindness and effort will always, always be appreciated and remembered.