What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You a Stronger Fundraiser

“You’re on Mount Everest,” the doctor told me when she admitted me to the ICU in February 2024.

She stared directly at me. Made eye contact. Gave me a stern look.

She repeated what she had said a few minutes earlier because it obviously had not sunk in.

“Ms. Bain, you are sick.”

I didn’t understand what she meant until months later, when I looked up what happens to the body on Mount Everest.

She was telling me I was in the Death Zone.

The lungs move, but the oxygen doesn’t reach the brain. The body is alive, but everything is starting to die.

You’re breathing — but you’re suffocating anyway.

Suffocating at sea level.

There was nothing I could do but wait and whisper to myself.

Breathless hopeful messages.

Try to stay warm.

Hope that help will come.

Hope that I would come back.

I came back with a vengeance — and I’m determined to make sure no one else collapses on that mountain.

No one should have to face something this unbearable alone.

No one should slip into a crevasse because they were unseen, unfunded, or left behind.

I’m now raising $50,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Visionaries of the Year campaign, with a major push on April 15 to raise $10,000 in a single day.

I’m a hematology patient. My condition is ultra-rare and confusing to treat. We rely on the work of organizations like LLS.

That’s the world we’re navigating.

Some of us live in the same base camp. Some of us live in the same tent.

We all see the same doctors, and many of us use the same medications and immunotherapies.

And in some cases, we’re in the same tent because some people have cancer and my condition.

Our paths are intertwined. And often our fates are, too.

I wasn’t pulled back by one hand.

It took hematologists. It took research. It took doctors willing to act in uncertainty — to try, to adjust, to keep going.

The rescue was rough. But it held.

The rescue held — but only because the lifelines were there.

LLS helped create them.

They funded the science behind Rituxan, a drug that now reaches far beyond blood cancer. It’s used to target rogue B cells — the cells that multiply out of control in cancer, or misfire in autoimmune disease. In patients like me, it can quiet a system in chaos. Rituxan was born in cancer trials. Now it’s one of the ropes that can help pull people out of the danger zone — but only if it gets there in time. Before the collapse. Before the oxygen slips away.

We need to keep people from getting that far. We need earlier diagnosis, earlier treatment, and a system that acts before people break.

This moment is dangerous. Clinics closing. Copays rising.

The cost of staying alive climbing — faster than most of us can breathe.

Crowdfunding for chemotherapy.

“Stop. Don’t scroll,” they say. “Sit with me so I can pay…”

Bluntly, says one cancer patient: “No one can afford to be sick in America.”

Stops. Me. Every. Time.

In a crisis, we talk about fight, flight, or freeze.

That’s the human response to danger.

I don’t want to freeze.

I want to fight.

The air is thinning. First, the fingers go numb. Then the brain blurs. The body shuts down what it can to keep the heart going.

But without help — the oxygen runs out.

This is collapse by neglect.

Cumulative.

Damning.

Damage.

Denied access.

Delayed care.

Dismissed symptoms.

Pushed past breaking.

This is what happens when government, insurers, and policy drain the air from people’s lungs.

Stop.

This is our calling.

We can fix this.

LLS is stepping up where others step back. They fight to reach and help people before they reach the Death Zone — helping them find care before the air runs out.

In the Bay Area, they’ve invested millions into Stanford and UCSF — funding research, clinical trials, and breakthrough therapies that change the course of treatment.

They offer financial assistance, clinical trial navigation, and fertility support — clearing paths that most patients would never reach alone.

Through the Dare to Dream project, they’re breathing life into young people and working to make sure no child is left without care.

And through Myeloma Link, they’re reaching Black communities with lifesaving education, connection, and support.

My crisis came without warning. It was sudden and severe — the kind of thing no one sees coming, not even the hospital that had to treat me.

I looked sick. I was jaundiced. I could barely walk.

I’ve been medically gaslit before — as a multiply marginalized American.

And people on the margins in this country are the most fragile when crisis hits.

Women. Children. Underserved communities.

We’re underrepresented in trials.

We’re overlooked in the waiting room.

We’re less likely to be believed, less likely to be diagnosed in time, and more likely to die when care is delayed.

My friend Brenda and I were in the hospital at the same time.

I left. She didn’t.

She was kind. Selfless. Always helpful — the kind of person we need more of in America.

And now she’s gone.

She didn’t get diagnosed early enough.

She didn’t get treatment early enough.

Her husband is grieving the loss of his life partner — and half of his income.

She might have lived longer with earlier care.

But for the grace of God go I.

But for the grace of strangers go I.

And for the grace of you goes the next person on Mount Everest.

This work is a rescue mission.

It’s about throwing the rope before someone slips.

It’s about reaching them before the air thins out.

You could be someone’s saving grace — a friend, a lifeline, a reason they get one more chance.

I’m so grateful to be a part of this.

I hope you’ll join me.

Donate here:

https://pages.lls.org/voy/gba/bayarea25/dbaino