Dear everyone,
*Shinta's ex-colleague's 4 year old daughter, Charmaine Lim, has stage 4 Neuroblastoma cancer which has spread to her bone marrow. She has just undergone surgery and will be starting her 5th round of chemotherapy soon. Her chances of survival while undergoing treatment in Singapore is only placed at 20%.
There is however, a 3F8 treatment available only in New York, which would help to raise her chances to 40-50% instead. The problem is that initial payment of US$350,000 (about S$500,000) must be made to the NY cancer center, and that's not including additional costs such as flying up, living expenses and so on. The window of opportunity for this treatment to be most effective for Charmaine, is by end July.
Charmaine's mother, Cynthia Lim, is only 29 years old and divorced with 2 kids (Charmaine and a 5 year old son Jase). They live with her parents and younger brother in a 4 room HDB flat in Punggol and gets by on savings and monthly maintenance from her ex-husband. You can find out more about her situation on this page. Understandably, affording half a million dollars in her situation is going to be difficult.
Although I knew about Charmaine's case earlier, Cynthia and her friends have all along kept things low key, probably because support from friends and 1st/2nd degree well-wishers was just about enough cover the Singapore medical bills. With the large amount needed for the 3F8 treatment however, they have had no choice but to appeal publicly and on a larger scale for a specific amount of targeted funds. They are targeting to raise sufficient funds by 13 July.
*Shinta and I don't normally do things like forward emails / stories / appeals etc. The reason why we've decided to try help raise support this time however is because:
1) *Shinta knows Cynthia, and has met Charmaine before. There is therefore assurance that this is not some email hoax meant to cheat people into donating to an imaginary person.
2) Even with family support, being only 29 years old, raising 2 kids as a single mum must be difficult enough as it is. Fighting so hard for a daughter's life while having to worry about financial resources? How many of us have the courage to face that?
3) While this is not a registered charity, you're not going to get your tax deductions or fancy auditors presenting fancy reports on how your money was spent, Cynthia and her friends have done a lot to verify their appeal to the public, including
- Regular updates on Charmaine's status
- Openly using doctors' names and dates/details of procedures
- Obtained a medical report from NUH on the proposed US treatment for Charmaine
- Given those donating some choice in how they want the funds to be used (Charmaine's medical / personal expenses / ease family expenses)
There is of course nothing to 100% guarantee that any money donated will definitely go towards treatment. After all, who would have thought that funds donated for kidney dialysis would go towards paying for gold taps? But the above is as good as it gets. I myself can't think of what else they could really do to provide more reassurance and transparency than what they have already done on their blog.
Do contact them directly if you wish to ask more questions, find out more information, donate or make a pledge of some kind. There's tons of stuff on their blog though (fundraising events, forum support, FAQs), so I recommend you check that out first. You can also drop me a note if you want me to do/ask anything for you.
Thanks in advance on their behalf.
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More information
You can get more information from the following links:
Blog & Updates: http://ourfeistyprincess.blogspot.com/
How to donate: Donations
Fund raising: http://ourfeistyprincess.com/
Newspaper Articles:
AsiaOne March09, AsiaOne June09 , TNP, TNP Soccer Match
*Shinta's ex-colleague's 4 year old daughter, Charmaine Lim, has stage 4 Neuroblastoma cancer which has spread to her bone marrow. She has just undergone surgery and will be starting her 5th round of chemotherapy soon. Her chances of survival while undergoing treatment in Singapore is only placed at 20%.
There is however, a 3F8 treatment available only in New York, which would help to raise her chances to 40-50% instead. The problem is that initial payment of US$350,000 (about S$500,000) must be made to the NY cancer center, and that's not including additional costs such as flying up, living expenses and so on. The window of opportunity for this treatment to be most effective for Charmaine, is by end July.
Charmaine's mother, Cynthia Lim, is only 29 years old and divorced with 2 kids (Charmaine and a 5 year old son Jase). They live with her parents and younger brother in a 4 room HDB flat in Punggol and gets by on savings and monthly maintenance from her ex-husband. You can find out more about her situation on this page. Understandably, affording half a million dollars in her situation is going to be difficult.
Although I knew about Charmaine's case earlier, Cynthia and her friends have all along kept things low key, probably because support from friends and 1st/2nd degree well-wishers was just about enough cover the Singapore medical bills. With the large amount needed for the 3F8 treatment however, they have had no choice but to appeal publicly and on a larger scale for a specific amount of targeted funds. They are targeting to raise sufficient funds by 13 July.
*Shinta and I don't normally do things like forward emails / stories / appeals etc. The reason why we've decided to try help raise support this time however is because:
1) *Shinta knows Cynthia, and has met Charmaine before. There is therefore assurance that this is not some email hoax meant to cheat people into donating to an imaginary person.
2) Even with family support, being only 29 years old, raising 2 kids as a single mum must be difficult enough as it is. Fighting so hard for a daughter's life while having to worry about financial resources? How many of us have the courage to face that?
3) While this is not a registered charity, you're not going to get your tax deductions or fancy auditors presenting fancy reports on how your money was spent, Cynthia and her friends have done a lot to verify their appeal to the public, including
- Regular updates on Charmaine's status
- Openly using doctors' names and dates/details of procedures
- Obtained a medical report from NUH on the proposed US treatment for Charmaine
- Given those donating some choice in how they want the funds to be used (Charmaine's medical / personal expenses / ease family expenses)
There is of course nothing to 100% guarantee that any money donated will definitely go towards treatment. After all, who would have thought that funds donated for kidney dialysis would go towards paying for gold taps? But the above is as good as it gets. I myself can't think of what else they could really do to provide more reassurance and transparency than what they have already done on their blog.
Do contact them directly if you wish to ask more questions, find out more information, donate or make a pledge of some kind. There's tons of stuff on their blog though (fundraising events, forum support, FAQs), so I recommend you check that out first. You can also drop me a note if you want me to do/ask anything for you.
Thanks in advance on their behalf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
More information
You can get more information from the following links:
Blog & Updates: http://ourfeistyprincess.blogspot.com/
How to donate: Donations
Fund raising: http://ourfeistyprincess.com/
Newspaper Articles:
AsiaOne March09, AsiaOne June09 , TNP, TNP Soccer Match
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