What We Can Do to Help

The purpose of this blog is to connect our friends and family and create an active, loving, contributing network of support for Yvonne, Tom, and Steffi throughout Yvonne's cancer treatment. This is an extremely difficult time for their family, but we can help make it better. I have some ideas on how we can help.


Be vocal in your love and support. Let them know you are thinking of them. You could:

• Call
• Send a text
• Send Yvonne a Facebook message
• Send a card (check these out--Yvonne, don't look!) or a letter
• Comment on this blog--they'll be checking it and it would be nice to see an active community here

Donate your time. If you're nearby, you could come over to:

• Clean house
• Help pack (don't know why they're packing? see this post)
• Make dinner
• Mow the lawn
• Do some laundry
• Drive Yvonne or Steffi to appointments
• Tell jokes
• Read aloud
• Stand on your head

Send money. No kidding, this is expensive: the cancer treatment itself, of course, but there are a lot of other new costs, too. You could contribute money for any of the following:

• Moving. I'd really really like to see us get these guys a moving service. They shouldn't be doing this right now. Can you help? (See this post for more about the move.)
• Gas. Round trip to the Cancer Center is 30 miles x 5 days a week x 7 weeks = over 1,000 extra miles.
• House cleaning. I have volunteered to send my wonderful cleaning lady over to do floors, bathrooms, etc. to save them the time and energy.
• Food. I have this notion of filling their freezer with easy-to-prepare meals and snacks that Yvonne will find appealing even when she's not feeling so hot.
• Prescriptions. There are a lot, and Medicare doesn't cover everything.
• Medical bills. According to this article, the average monthly cost of a brand-name cancer drug is $10,000. Medicare covers 75%. This is only chemo, not including 7 weeks of daily radiation treatments. You do the math.

A quick Google search revealed a couple of websites with other ideas about what we can do to help. 

• Cancer + Careers has some great thoughts about sending written notes and more.
• Cancer.net has a great article including Do's and Don'ts about what to say, gift ideas, and more
• I love the "go ahead and do something" advice on GiveForward's list of five ways to support a cancer patient
• This HuffPo article repeats some of that advice with a fun tone

We have to pull together to make sure the Kenyon family knows we love them and we're there for them. Pick something and do it today, won't you? And then tomorrow. And then...You get the idea.

Thank you!