Family Overwhelmed With Bills For Mariah Thompson, 5-Year-Old With Leukemia: You Can Help

After Mariah Thompson was diagnosed with leukemia at 3 years old, her family began making regular trips from their Montana home to Seattle Children's Hospital for cancer treatments.

In the two years since her diagnosis, the family's situation has become increasingly dire as mounting medical bills and unexpected difficulties continue to spring up, according to The Great Falls Tribune.

During a drive to their daughter's treatment this summer, the family's luck took a turn for the worse. Sparks began to fly as the family Suburban lost a wheel on the highway. Luckily, Mariah's father Pat was able to navigate the car safely to the side of the road -- but the broken-down vehicle only added to the family's debt.

The Great Falls Tribune reports,

Mariah's treatments have cost them far beyond what they can afford. Their first doctor bill after Mariah's diagnosis was $49,000, which is more than the family makes in a year. Bonnie's husband lives on a fixed income as a disabled veteran, and Bonnie works three days a week as a housekeeper on a ranch.

WATCH:

Now, a local nonprofit is raising funds to help the family pay to repair their car, which they need to transport Mariah and her five siblings to Seattle.

Supporters can contribute to by sending donations to the Great Falls Uptown Optimist Club P.O. Box 462, Great Falls, MT 59403.

Comments

[Ventoi]

10:06 AM on 12/18/2010

Save this child.

[texastrixie]

12:35 AM on 12/17/2010

Thank you for putting in an address to send money to! Usually we see these stories and its not always easy to see how one is supposed to help.

[alicam]

02:01 PM on 12/15/2010

Donate to this family and help them through a rough patch. Pay veterans and disabled a livable income and enact universal health coverage and help a family all their years.

[lovbug]

05:57 PM on 12/14/2010

Socialized healthcare would solve a lot of problems. As well as the "public option" which so many people stood by and watch it fizzle. We reap what we sow.

[lovbug]

05:53 PM on 12/14/2010

As sympathetic as I am to this plight, there are thousands of people in America with this same need. I need to know these are good people and this is legit. There is so many scam out here these days.

[rinpochet]

01:54 PM on 12/14/2010

This is a story multiplied by tens of thousands of heartbreaking stories all over the country.

We just helped a family .. actually a father with two young children whose mother died very recently. He lost his job and among his wish list of things he needed was toilet paper! As I thought about it I felt helpless. So many in need. Then I thought, what if we all contributed to a national fund. Realized that we do! It's our taxes!! Now why aren't our taxes being partly used as a safety net to help out those who have fallen on hard times? Those billions given away to the wealthy was a crime against the people.

Of course I will donate this family. It's the middle class and the less well off as usual helping people out while the uber rich wonder where to purchase their new mansion or where to moor their new yacht. This is the American tragedy.

[imsadformyson]

12:26 PM on 12/14/2010

ill get ahold of of the CEO of United Health, im sure he will help

[ibecametheman]

09:41 AM on 12/14/2010

they would get a lot more money if they setup a paypal account

[texastrixie]

12:37 AM on 12/17/2010

Yes, a paypal account would be most helpful. In fact, PAYPAL, please contact these people and help them set up an account. Forget those little discounts you are always trying to get me to use. Get this set up and I will paypal them a donation! (You can discount what you charge them as a processing fee).

[hawkrew]

09:30 AM on 12/14/2010

This is absolutely heartbreaking. The fact that this little girl is dealt this hand is just infuriating. As much as I love this country, there are some things that I just can't stand.

[1TaxCutter]

09:11 AM on 12/14/2010

''As you slide down the banisters of life
may the splinters never point the wrong way. ''

wishing you well , hope and a long ,long life .

[Pippilangstrumpf]

09:07 AM on 12/14/2010

Do you think The Weeper of The House a.k.a. Boehner, is crying any tears over stories like this? I mean, if one of his kids gets cancer, or he himself...they would have nothing to worry about. Their health care comes tied in a lovely red bow!
But the rest of us? What do they care if the rest of don't have money to pay for basic health care. They won't cry any tears over that.
This is just pathetic. There are always going to be rich and always going to be poor...not everyone had to live in a million dollar mansion or send their kids to private schools...but we should ALL have access to health care and we should not have to choose between making our mortgage payment, buying groceries, having a car with four good wheels or watching our child die because we can't pay the doctors and hospitals.
When is this going to change?

[texastrixie]

12:41 AM on 12/17/2010

From the looks of the number of people who tell pollsters that they hate health care, this isn't going to change in our lifetimes. In fact, once the Republicans get through with Medicare (if not Medicaid and Chips), it will get worse. Boehner cries over the children in this country, and then fights any program that would expand the school lunch program, unemployment compensation (evidently he doesn't realize that some people on unemployment have kids to feed), and the Chips program. He cares about children, but only if your daddy and mommy make a lot of money and can contribute to his campaign.

[jpb0914]

09:06 AM on 12/14/2010

This is a aterrible thing to say, and I expect some hard responses, but I do wonder........did the parents vote Republican ? I see this all the time when I have to question the politics of the victims...sadly...they seem to support politics that oppose their own self-interest.

I recall a lady in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, named Nash McCabe, during the election campaigning, who said she would not vote for Obama because he did not wear the American flag pin on his lapel, all this while she and her husband filed for bankruptcy after a maining accident left him unable to work and the disability payments were not forthcoming.

[lovbug]

05:55 PM on 12/14/2010

I said the same thing. My money is too hard to come by these days, I need to know I'm supporting good people. I'm tired of bad people moving ahead and good people being forgotten.

[sarahinez]

06:21 PM on 12/14/2010

Since the 5 year-old is too young to vote the wrong way and is still under the age of accountability, perhaps you could donate to her anyway.

[jkeen60]

02:44 AM on 12/15/2010

What is your definition of bad people? And to the poster who wondered if her parents were Republicans...shame on you. Would it be better if her parents were members of the Democratic Party? SWP? Libertarian? Where do you draw the line on giving to A 5 YEAR OLD LEUKEMIA patient? How are you going to vet this? The Optimists and the TV station "vetted" this family and others as part of a program of helping those in need. Are you going to drive to Montana? Call a PI to check out the kid's story? Make sure her hair fell out at some time? Shame on you.

[sarahinez]

06:40 PM on 12/14/2010

I'll swear, you make me embarrassed to be a Democrat. Tea Partiers would ask about their immigration status or complain about the number of children, but instead of showing the compassion that supposed to be our hallmark, you're dragging partisan politics into the story of a sick, perhaps dying child.

Yes, people vote against their self-interest. Read George Lakoff's column here on Huff Po to see why and what we can do about it.

This family is in Montana, not Pennsylvania. If they're like most poor people, they didn't vote at all because the effort to do so didn't seem worth it. Given the latest "rolling over and playing dead" for the Greedy Old Party, you could hardly blame them.

[Darryl Clayton]

09:02 AM on 12/14/2010

Send the bill to the republican party.

[Curt F]

08:50 AM on 12/14/2010

How come Boehner doesn't cry over stories like this one??? I wish the family and the little girl all the best!

[DKLabRat]

08:48 AM on 12/14/2010

I simply cannot get my head around a country as sophisticated and wealthy as the US, relegating whether someone lives or dies to charity. There are few lives which will be untouched by disease or accident. To have people bankrupted dealing with these life tragedies unless people pity them enough to save them is an abomination. And what of those who don't have a cute kid to dangle in front of the media? Are they simply forgotten about and shovelled into their graves?

[emphatico]

03:54 PM on 12/14/2010

*whispers* US is NOT wealthy. It is living off future generations' credit card.