The news is not as bad for Jevon Mahler, but it's hardly encouraging. Last night we reported that he had gotten a letter from a U.S. hospital offering to cover all his medical expenses. Armed with that, his mother Patricia Lanza today visited the U.S. Embassy to try and get a visa. Well, as seems so often to be the case recently, he failed. She explains.
Patricia Lanza, Mother
"This morning I went in for the visa and they said they are not giving him any visa. They just turned him down because I don't have a job nor a bank statement. I told them how will I have a bank statement when I have to use all the money for Jevon and how will I have a job when I have to stay home with him. And I told them even if it was just him alone I wouldn't mind because its not like I really want to go, I just want him to get the support to go. The last chance for Jevon is for him to go to Cuba and for us to hurry get the tests done on the family to see if there is a match for him.
I gave them the letter because only that they said wanted so I got the letter and showed it to them and it still didn't work. What else is there to do? I am asking everybody out there to please help and give Jevon a support so that he could survive because he has gone through a lot and he wants to go back to school. All the Ministers and them please help and everybody else out there."
While Lanza is now looking at Cuba and bone marrow tests to be performed in Merida for possible donors, some local care is available to him here through a dialysis procedure that will cost them some $1,300 initially and three other treatments in excess of $400 each.
The family is once again appealing to the public for their assistance. Anyone who can do so can contact Lanza at phone number 600-1595 or through Scotia Bank at account number 9100249.
