----- Original Message -----
From: Dick Newsome<mailto:w0hxl@cox.net>
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;<mailto:Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 7:38 PM
Subject: Fw: Anderson Family Fund Raiser
Matt Anderson is the ARRL Nebraska Section Manager and asked me to forward this on. This has to be devastating to their entire family.
----------- Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: Matthew Anderson<mailto:ma63021@navix.net>
To: w0hxl@cox.net<mailto:w0hxl@cox.net>
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 6:33 PM
Subject: Anderson Family Fund Raiser
Dick,
I would appreciate you passing the word around...
Our community is holding a fund raiser for our family. It will be February 25th, 2007 from 10 am to 2 pm at the VFW hall located on the SW corner of 25th & Silver Streets in Ashland, Nebraska. It is right across the street from No Frills Supermarket. They ( the American Lutheran Church and members of the community) will be holding a spaghetti feed with free will offering along with a silent auction and raffle. I know that you can't be there, but I would appreciate it if you would forward this e-mail onto your friends and contacts. We would like to see the VFW packed out. We would be eternally grateful.
The two local banks have also set up special savings accounts that people can send money to directly if they are unable to attend, but would like to help out. They are
Farmers & Merchants National Bank
1501 Silver Street
Ashland, NE. 68003
Put it attention Mary Bohn, and put a note in the letter for Anderson Family Fund.
Phone #402-944-3316
Centennial Bank
2433 Silver Street
Ashland, NE. 68003
PH#402-944-2111
Put it Attention Kaylene Grell
Also, put a note in the letter for Matt & Gwen Anderson savings account.
If anyone has any questions about this, please contact Mary Bohn at Farmers & Merchants Bank.
or if people want to they can send it directly to us.
Matt Anderson Family
2342 Clay Street
Ashland, NE. 68003
402-944-7488
I have written a synopsis of events that has led us to the need for this fund raiser. Frankly the way things have happened are just incredible.
As some of you know by now, Gwen my wife has had some very serious medical issues this past year. In August of last year she was diagnosed with stage IIIC Ovarian Cancer. She had a complete hysterectomy and received chemo, in which the first treatment nearly killed her because of a reaction to the drug. Fast forward ahead to the middle of January of this year. Gwen was about 2 weeks out of her last chemo when she was not feeling well and began to run a fever. I took her into the Emergency room where they determined that she possibly had a bite (maybe from a spider?, know one seems to know) and that it had become infected. So they admitted her. After running several other tests they found out that she also had a staph infection so they began treating her for that. Then two days later she developed blood clots in both of her lungs and it affected her so much that she has no memory of that day. So, they put her on blood thinners to dissolve the clots and so far it seems to be working.
Now, that's not the best of of it..
On this same day Friday when Gwen was diagnosed with the blod clots, we awoke to a cold house and found that our 20 year old furnace system had quit. While asking our local heating and cooling shop if they could come out, they said that they were booked, but that my problem most likely was the exhaust motor. So, I called a place in Omaha that had one and got in the car and got about 2 miles outside of town and threw the timing chain on my 2000 Dodge Intrepid, which in turn shelled out the motor...a new motor is $3500, plus labor...we are not going to put money into fixing the car, and we will be hoping to look for a good used "new" car.
Now, I got the car towed back into town, made it into Omaha got the blower motor, installed it and it wasn't the problem. I called no less than 20 different shops and they were all busy, and finally got one to come out at 7pm on Friday night. It took him four hours to diagnose the problem and it turned out to be a cracked heat exchanger. We have a 90% efficency furnace so the heat exchanger has to be in perfect shape or it won't stay lit. To top it all off, the installer said that the previous unit was installed incorrectly, in which the plenum and the vents were 2/3rds to small. This added to the premature failure of the heat exchanger.
We have actually had problems with the furnace over the past 5-7 years and attributed it to the age of the unit, when actually the heat exchanger was already at that time cracked. Which means that we had been pumping small amounts of carbon monoxide into our home thus making us all sick. We all had been having dry sore throats, and headaches but attributed it to winter heating and dry air.
Now, the old system won't mate up to anything new on the market and it would cost around $4-5K to get something to mate up. So we (my parents and I ) decided to get a new system. So, we had a new heat pump installed and new duct work, which will save us money in utility bills. This is an $8,000 investment.
The past medical bills since she was first diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure thru now, have been crippling. (She has had multiple surgeries....She had part of her left lung removed to remove carcinoid tumors, she has had her gal bladder out, she has had her hip fixed, and her knee replaced and now with the ovarian cancer she has had a complete hysterectomy and appendix taking out )
Thus, it has been a dilema of paying the medical bills or putting food on the table and a roof over my head. To put it bluntly, our credit sucks...my wife and I. Enter my parents. They are both retired and in their 70's. They have great credit, but limited means to pay. We have very little extra money at the end of the paycheck and will be using that plus any extra the embroidery business and the T-shirt business makes to help with the payments.
So, this is the reason for the fund raiser. To help to quickly reduce the debt of the furnace and to help us get a good reliable vehicle. Because right now, we have a 93 Ford van that has a V-8 engine that runs on 7 cylinders and it is a gas hog.
We hope to see you there, and will be eternally grateful for any help that you can give.
Matt Anderson Family
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