Giving a Sarcoid Patient the Gift of Life

It was a late November day in 2015 when I first noticed a lump in my left parotid gland. Because of graduate school I couldn't schedule an appointment with my ENT physician until Christmas break. His appraisal wasn't reassuring, he suggested the gland be biopsied to determine what the cause of the lesion was.

My first opportunity was in Spring of 2016 when I was again home from my graduate studies. The diagnosis was sarcoidosis. Normally, sarcoid isn't caught so easily, so I figured that I was lucky however, my course of treatment wasn't to be so straight forward.

By the time 2018 was finished, I found dropped from the Ph.D. program I had started the fall before, and I was sleeping 20 hours a day. The long term treatment will be steroids, anti-malarial agents, and chemotherapy drugs to keep my immune system in check.

The last 2 years have been hard and between the mounting medical bills and my accrued student loans I have racked up a large amount of debt. These funds will go towards paying off those debts.