Call for Fund to Turn a Tragedy around

(This article is posted at ilist.com simultaneously but in a slightly different title)

A campaign has been launched to raise fund to help Wanbin Lu, a multiple-stroke survivor, return to his family in China.

Wanbin has been a long-time resident in the Twin Cities area. He started here in 1987 as a graduate student on the University of Minnesota St. Paul campus and was an IT specialist living in Woodbury when a series of strokes incapacitated him late last July.

Wanbin has been in a dire health condition ever since, but cannot afford any treatment. It is a tragedy to see this PhD and IT Specialist having been reduced to 1-yr-olds in terms of his physical, language and other life skills, and this 6-footer weighing down to mere 120 pounds from his former 180. It is a travesty of common sense that he has received no therapy or treatment beyond medications since last October, and that he has been served only with baby food ever since the strokes, while he is perfectly capable of enjoying food like chicken sandwich (which I ordered while visiting him in an emergency room and which he finished by even licking his figures to show his enjoyment of it).

Wanbin has in China a family of two dozens plus, from his 91-yr-old mother on down, but cannot afford to fly there and get reunited with them. It is heart-breaking to see him all alone by himself except for care givers, while all his family members are anxious to have him back to their folder, to help him with treatments, and to love and care him.

We his friends just launched the fund drive to turn those no-he-cann’ts into yes-he-can’s. We need your help to spread the story of this heart-wrenching personal tragedy and to mobilize Minnesota Nice to make the turnaround possible. Please read A Stroke Victim for details and for contact information.

Please act now. Please let Wanbin's family in the distant land know that, yes, we have exceptionally cold weathers here, but we have even more exceptionally warm hearts. That is how we survive the cold. That is Minnesota Nice.

Please accept my deepest gratitude to you for your help, from the deepest of my heart, and on behalf of Wanbin, my once great but now tragic friend.