November 18, 2015

Health Update

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I’m afraid the news can’t always be good on the health front. I got my latest lab work yesterday and it wasn’t encouraging. My immune system, after stabilizing last month, weakened again. My neutrophil count is down to 1500, which isn’t quite in the danger zone but is mighty close. At the same time, my M-protein marker, which measures the level of cancerous cells in my bone marrow, went up from 0.55 to 0.61. It looks like 0.55 might be as good as it gets, and that’s nowhere close to zero. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that I can try a higher dose of my current chemo med with my immune system already so compromised.

Any single month can be an outlier, so there’s no need to panic yet. I’ll have another set of lab work in December, and I’ll see my oncologist shortly after that. If the numbers haven’t improved, I’ll try a little harder than usual to drag some actual information out of her.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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