The act of giving is at the core of Cancer Copay Relief. Ours is a mission of mercy and healing brought to a population under duress. Our mission is simple: To help share the burden of cancer by providing financial assistance to those currently undergoing treatment.

Financing cancer treatment, even for the insured, can be a daunting task. Debt mounts so quickly that it has been referred to as “hemorrhaging money”. Visits to oncologists, imaging centers, blood tests, and medications such as those to fight the relentless nausea of chemotherapy all come with their associated costs; they come often and the bills mount higher.

As we’ve all experienced at some point in our lives, debt brings on psychological stress. For healthy people, this stress usually fluctuates, with periods of relief. But, in situations where someone is seriously ill, such as cancer, the combination of physical and financial exhaustion can be overwhelming for both patients and family members.

From a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, patients with substantial medical needs allocated at least 10% of their total income to their healthcare. Many families then took on additional debts and loans just to keep the lifesaving treatments going. This study also showed that the higher percentage of income paid toward healthcare, the more likely a patient and their caregivers were to be depressed.1 Depressed and financially stressed caregivers and patients are definitely not on the list of ideal members in a support team for the critically ill.

Let us look further at this. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a group of researchers asserted that 31% of families with a seriously ill member showed a loss of most or all of their savings, and 29% of the same families lost their major source of income.2 Basically, not only was the burden of financing the treatment of their seriously ill family member expensive, the financial pool keeping them afloat got shallower. 

But we all have financial worries, right? This is quite true. The economic climate in our country is uncertain, with an unemployment rate climbing faster than we’ve seen in decades. So, how can we expect our critically ill to fend for themselves?

In an effort to examine the relationship between healing and psychological stress, researchers administered a test measuring a patients levels of anxiety and depression. They concluded that patients in the top 50% of scores were four times more likely to have delayed healing than those with lower scores.3 Patients with less stress healed faster than those with higher anxiety and depression. 

But it doesn’t stop there. The Lancet published a similarly focused study claiming that not only did people under higher amounts of psychological stress heal slower, but that their immune system produced significantly less interleukin-1, the protein molecule which triggers, among other things, bone marrow production. Bone marrow is responsible for producing the body’s ability to transport oxygen, fight infection, and prevent bleeding.4 Under significant stress, the sick stay sick.

From these studies we see that not only do people who are seriously ill begin taking on insurmountable debt, but that these debts cause significant psychological stress. This stress, in turn, wreaks havoc on the body by decreasing its ability to provide energy to its cells, and even slows its healing by four times that of people not undergoing such heavy stress. This pattern is detrimental to the sick, who need healing the most.

But what can we do about it? We intend to help relieve some of this stress. By collecting monetary donations from people willing to give, and redistributing them to cancer patients we help share the burden of financing their treatment. By sharing this burden, it is our hope that these people will be better equipped to fight their sickness by embracing the positive emotions related to connection with (and assistance from) others, rather than alienation associated with diagnosis, treatment and the costs which come from this battle.

--Jacob Carr
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1 Emanuel, E.J., Fairclough, D.L., Slutsman, J., & Emanuel, L.L. (2000). Understanding the economic and other burdens of terminal illness for patients and their caregivers..
Annals of Internal Medicine, 132(6), 451.
2 Covinsky, K.E., et. al. (1994). The impact of serious illness on patients' families.. Journal of the American Medical Association, 272(23), 1839-1844.
3 Cole-King, A, & Harding, K.G. (2001). Psychological factors and delayed healing in chronic wounds.. Psychosomatic Medicine, 63, 216-220.
4 Kiecolt-Glaser, J.K., Marucha, P.T., Mercado, P.T., Malarkey, W.B., & Glaser, R. (1995). Slowing of wound healing by psychological stress. The Lancet, 346(8984), 1194-1196.