By Lisa Respers France, NCS
(NCS) — Tom Constanten wasn’t part of the Grateful Dead for very lengthy, however followers nonetheless worth his time with the enduring group.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Deadheads have rallied across the 81-year-old and are elevating cash to help pay for the radiation therapies he’s present process to deal with lung cancer.
“Each round knocks me out for days, though so far that’s the one symptom,” he instructed the newspaper about his treatment. “It’s pretty intense.”
Constanten was the band’s keyboardist in its early days, enjoying with the Dead for 14 months in 1968 and 1969.
A GoFundMe arrange for him has practically reached its objective of $70,000.
He’s not the one one within the Grateful Dead’s entourage who followers are flocking to help.
A GoFundMe arrange for Candace Brightman, who served because the Grateful Dead’s lighting director from 1972 to 1995, has surpassed its objective of $75,000 as she battles monetary and medical issues, together with failing eyesight. Fans have additionally chipped in for Betty Cantor-Jackson, a producer and sound recordist for the band, roadie Kidd Candelario and the Dead’s former onstage monitor engineer, Harry Popick.
The Grateful Dead is among the world’s most well-known rock bands. It was based within the San Francisco Bay Area in 1965 and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
Sometimes touring the world to see the band, Deadheads have developed their very own subculture and neighborhood.
“We’re surrounded by a culture that feels like we’ve been living in a house together all these years,” David Gans, a musician who hosts the syndicated radio present “The Grateful Dead Hour” and co-authored the guide “Playing in the Band: An Oral and Visual Portrait of the Grateful Dead,” instructed the publication. “We see it as a family and communal social scene. But the actual structures are different. What is the obligation?”
Medical debt is an growing concern for many Americans and has been a part of a nationwide dialog that has ramped up as some brace for rising prices with the expiration of tax credit for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) which have helped many afford medical insurance.
On Wednesday House Republicans narrowly handed their own version of a health care bill which didn’t embrace ACA subsidies.
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