“He still has life to live in him. He was able to get treatment but was unable to get here.”
This year, Greg Sulzer developed a sore throat that wouldn’t go away. That, and his rapid weight loss, signaled a dire diagnosis.
About the time he most needed his 25-year-old pickup truck to get him to treatments, it died. Meanwhile, slowly, he lost the ability to chew and swallow food.
Sulzer was admitted to Viera Hospital where case managers, armed with compassion and determination, sought to make a difference in his fate.
They applied for a Guardian Angel Grant through the Health First Foundation and its Compassionate Care Fund. The grant would pay for transportation to and from treatments as well as cover Sulzer’s tube feeding supplies for two months.
“Without the food or rides he received, or in other words, having to cancel chemo and radiation, Greg would not be alive. He’d have missed both his granddaughter’s first birthdays,” said Chauntel Martinez, a Patient Benefits Advisor at Health First Medical Group.
“To me, this is a blessing. It’s the only way I can eat. It’s the only way I can stay alive,” he said at the time.
On a Friday afternoon late in July, Sulzer rang the ceremonial brass bell outside the TrueBeam cancer radiation treatment space at Health First’s Cancer Institute in Viera, marking the end of his radiation treatments. His journey back to wellness is not over, but the immediate fight is.
Health First’s Day of Giving is Sept. 28. To make a contribution to the fund and help others like Greg Sulzer get timely aid to continue the targeted care they need to live, visit HF.org/dayofgiving.
READ the full story in Space Coast Daily HERE.