A Clyde man who mysteriously fell ill more than a year ago is now looking for help after he’s been unsuccessful with social assistance programs.
What started as a pain in Gerry Graham’s jaw in September 2014 later turned out to be a mass in his saliva gland. It took months before finally having an MRI to get a diagnosis and now, he’s since found out he’ll need to have his jaw removed.
Graham, 70, a career miner and forestry worker, was born and raised in Manitoba and has called Clyde home for the last four years. But it was last year when he reported when he noticed something wasn’t quite right.
“He had it before he took the other job, but because it was taking so long to get the first MRI going, that he finally said ‘I’m going to work,’” said Graham’s wife Heather Krysa.
After a couple of months on the job, the pain worsened.
“I had to quit,” Graham said.
Two months after returning home, Graham finally got his MRI and the outlook wasn’t good.
“The saliva gland is finished. It’s gone,” he said.
Worse than that, his condition appears to be deteriorating.
“It’s just spreading, spreading, spreading,” said Krysa.
“The weight of that mass made his face drop. It looked like he had a stroke. I took him straight to the hospital.”
Also discovered during the MRI were spots on his bowel and lung. Graham is set to undergo a biopsy next week to determine if the spots are cancerous. If they are, they’ll operate right then and there, if not, they won’t operate any further.
Following that, Graham will need to schedule surgery to remove his jaw, a very serious procedure that will require a long recovery.
Getting to this point hasn’t been easy on the couple.
“He filed for employment insurance last September, he’s been fighting with them since. He gets no answers and the only answers he has gotten from them is, ‘Sorry, we’re backlogged,’” Krysa said.
“We went to the government for social assistance, he’s too old. AISH, he’s too old. Every place we’ve been, we’ve hit corners. There’s nothing out there to help him.
“We went to the government offices and we asked them everything, filled out papers and haven’t even heard back if we’re entitled to anything.”
She said at the moment, they’re living off a $700 monthly pension and can’t even make car payments.
“If we lose the car, we lose everything,” Kysa said, adding that COPD, arthritis and neck problems prevent her from working either.
Friend Carol Smith said it’s difficult to see the couple struggle.
“Gerry will give you the shirt off his back, he’ll take you anywhere, if you need money for a bill … anything at all,” she said.
“These guys are the best people to have as friends.”
Smith has opened a page on the crowd-funding site Go Fund Me, in order to help raise money to help cover off travel expenses to Edmonton and back for appointments.
“I’ll need money because he’ll be going back and forth for surgery, we’ll have to have money for parking and a place to stay,” Kysa said.
Donations can be made online via www.gofundme.com/Jerry-sJourney.
