The Tisdales' story—which combines high medical bills, an economic situation that forced someone to take multiple jobs, and gun violence—touched on multiple fault lines in American life, a fact pointed out by writer (and VICE contributor) Sean Collins on Twitter:The end stage symptoms are chest pain, depression, reduced lung function, disturbed sleep patterns, and becoming housebound. “Pulmonary Fibrosis is a disease marked by scarring in the lungs. Tissue deep in the lungs become thick, stiff and scarred. The scarring is called fibrosis. As the lung tissue becomes scarred it interferes with a persons ability to breathe."
This "heartwarming example of people's generosity" is also an indictment of America's healthcare system, which is so broken that people with serious medical conditions routinely have to beg for money from strangers on the internet; only those with viral stories are saved. The depressing, absurd twist is that the family has gone viral for an entirely separate tragedy.Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.Follow Nicole Clark on Twitter.We don’t know how to put it all into words but thank you doesn’t give it enough justification. With that said we raised the goal for funeral costs, bills, and possible lung transplant with second dr that we never thought was an option financially or because of receiving a no the first time…he is very blessed and after we start to find our new normalcy somewhat we will sit down and get the stem cell treatment hes been waiting and hoping and praying for thank you all again so very much!