The Facebook Friend: An Impossible Choice
No one should have to choose between trying to save their life and the livelihood of the survivors.
What I Watched
I was Facebook friends with a woman who had cancer, and would post about it every week in vain attempt to stave off the long-term effects she knew it was going to have on her family.
She wrote about how she felt about her children under ten and her husband, and the decisions they had to make about whether to try to save her by taking on lifelong debt that would outlast her by 50 years if it didn’t work.
And that last week before she died, with the half-measures of some chemo they managed to second mortgage the house for, and its effects, still trying to raise money with crowdfunding pleas for the debts she knew would ruin the future for them, still trying to work, were heart-wrenching.
No one should have to choose between trying to save their life and the livelihood of the survivors.
The Impossible Math
| What She Faced | The Cost |
|---|---|
| Treatment | Second mortgage on the house |
| If it worked | 50+ years of debt for her family |
| If it didn’t | 50+ years of debt AND no mother |
| Crowdfunding | Desperate pleas that couldn’t close the gap |
| Working | Still trying to earn, even in her last week |
The debt would outlast her. The debt would ruin the future for her children. And she knew it, every day, as she posted.
The System Is Broken — And They Know It
Yesterday (February 12, 2026), The New York Times reported that the Senate Health Committee is investigating a private company making millions off a federal drug program meant to help the poor. The 340B program — designed in 1992 to help safety-net hospitals care for needy patients — has been captured by a single company, Apexus, enjoying profit margins above 80% while patients are “left with big bills” and “rarely know they are part of this system.”
Senator Bill Cassidy’s investigation found a 3,291 percent increase in the program from 2005 to 2024, with health care companies spending a record $81.4 billion on drugs under the program in 2024. Johns Hopkins professor Ge Bai called it a “government-protected monopoly” with “unintended consequences.”
My Facebook friend faced impossible math because this is how the system works. Not by accident. By design.
What Make-A-Wish Doesn’t Cover
Make-A-Wish Foundation was innovative but limited because it gave a lightning strike of one big life event. For an understandably limited number of children; who have desires limited by inexperience and exposure, and are an easily marketed demographic.
Far more needed and rare is the support of a likely terminal adult with both the awareness of what is needed more than a trip to Disneyland or a signing party with their favorite sports team, and the despairing inability to secure it.
She didn’t need a trip. She needed her family to survive after she didn’t.
The Military Friend
I had a friend in OCS that on the last PT test I ran with after I finished to encourage him to make the cutoff time. He made it. And then was denied his Commission, because he was 12 years in remission for testicular cancer, and the military didn’t want to be responsible for his potential bills.
All that work.
Twelve years cancer-free. Denied for what might happen.
Why I’m Not Sitting
One of my favorite passages of scripture is a single word. It’s during the stoning of the Apostle Stephen in Acts 7 that records the only time where Jesus is explicitly described as “standing” at the right hand of God, rather than sitting, in EVERY other context.
Standing. Where Stephen could see him, as it happened.
For reasons not discussed here (NO religion, NO politics Policy), but the impact is clear — and as my German check pilot admonished me I’m not “sitting back.” I’m not sitting at all; and I hope you aren’t either.
WE are the instruments of good. It’s up to US. Be present. Make a Difference.
Do The Swoop
The starfish story. Which is how, in my family, we refer to the story told about a man who during a walk saw a boy dancing erratically down the beach. Upon approaching him, the man saw that the boy was picking up starfish and flinging them into the ocean to save them from the inevitable scorching death of the afternoon sun. When asked since there were literally thousands of starfish that he couldn’t save, what did it matter, the boy replied as he threw another one:
“It matters to THIS one.”
No effort is wasted.
We can’t do everything. But we can do SOMETHING.
The Ripple “Make A Difference” Initiative — Do The Swoop — provides for the living needs of the family of patients so that they can focus on what matters.
We couldn’t possibly fund all the need in the world with the current systems. But we CAN take care of their electric bill, and water, and food, and make sure they don’t have to worry about eviction while they go bankrupt trying to pay for medical treatments while we try to make a better system that they may never get to see.
One grace that is within our collective power to bestow. If YOU want to.
| What Do The Swoop Covers | NOT Medical Bills |
|---|---|
| Electric bill | ✅ |
| Water bill | ✅ |
| Food | ✅ |
| Rent/mortgage (prevent eviction) | ✅ |
| Medical treatment | ❌ (system is broken; we can’t fix that alone) |
Purpose: Remove daily survival stress so family can focus on the patient.
The Moral Stance
Make it Personal. Do the Swoop.
I cannot, and I WILL NOT stand idly by.
The Connection
This letter is part of the Tatiana Schlossberg Health Accords — the governance framework for all healthcare initiatives within Liana Banyan.
See also:
- The Tatiana Schlossberg Health Accords — The journalist who documented what was broken
- The Jimmy Kimmel Letter — The father who used his platform
- The Pet Store Consideration — My own impossible moment
- Do The Swoop Initiative — Initiative #17
“No one should have to choose between trying to save their life and the livelihood of the survivors.”
For the Keep.