Hi friends, I am in the fight of my life and need your help! My name is Erik, and I was diagnosed with cancer in 2005. It was a hybrid environmental cancer they had not seen before, and they were not sure how to treat it. As a result, I have been through 13 surgeries, 2 forms of oral chemo, 2 rounds of radiation (one on my head and one on my tailbone), and I just tried immunotherapy, and it did not help. Although I have had cancer for so long, it was only after starting investigations into phosphate mining and other places like Cancer Alley that a tumor developed in my lymph nodes, and now, suddenly, an aggressive lung cancer. With cancer, there are usually more questions than answers, so the nodules in my lungs are too small to biopsy, so they do not know if it’s environmental cancer or lung cancer. To be safe, we start chemotherapy on June 24th. This is their Hail Mary, the last idea to battle a cancer that won’t go away.
This has affected my ability to maintain work, always on a treatment or having a surgery, and so I have taken my experience and issues and instead now focus on documentaries battling corporate pollution and animal rights films. It’s a challenge working while having cancer, the illness in travel, weird hours, the exhaustion, and the stress knowing part of your body is trying to kill you. Documentary films are important to challenge the traditional narrative and give people a voice that normally isn’t heard. I am very proud of our documentaries, although I was surprised to find out how little money they make. In our industry, currently, the streamers rule, and we see the smallest amounts from big names in streaming.
This is why I write this today, this is the hardest thing for me to do, to ask for money to help me through. It’s all happening too soon, I am scared for the first time, and lucky I have my partner to walk through this valley with me, but since it happened so suddenly, we are not financially prepared to make this happen. So often in the US, we have to choose our health based on money. If I couldn’t borrow what I already have, I could not get any treatment, so we are almost at the finish line. Treatments until Sept. 1, then a test to see if it’s working on the 20+ year cancer. We need your help to stay afloat during the next 6 months while I am down for the count, and then hoping to be back up and ready for more projects! Cancer cannot define me, but it certainly has drained me, emotionally and financially. But for all it has taken, it has also given me a gift, a purpose to fight against this, continuing to others! Thank you for checking out my story, and although it’s tough times for all, any amount you can spare will be a huge help!
