DATE: Friday, March 28, 1997                TAG: 9703260158

SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRRENTS    PAGE: 03   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   60 lines

FRIENDS ORGANIZE BENEFIT TO HELP WOMAN WITH CANCER SHE AND HER FAMILY WILL NEED TO PAY THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IN TREATMENT COSTS.

Four months ago, Debbie Minick was a reasonably healthy and happy 35-year-old wife and mother, volunteering at the Food Bank and taking care of stray animals in addition to running a household for her husband and three sons.

Today, she can barely use her right hand, her head is shaved, and she's reluctant to try to eat in a restaurant because she worries about dropping something.

Her problems started in November, when she had headaches ``worse than labor pains'' and began to notice ``that I wasn't functioning right.'' An MRI test on Dec. 5 showed an unidentified ``spot'' in her head. By Jan. 22, the spot had grown to about one-third the size of her brain. Within a week, she had surgery to remove the tumor. Initially, she was paralyzed on her right side.

The diagnosis was a type of brain tumor called glioblastoma.

After the operation, she went to Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C., for treatment that had to be postponed because of an infection.

``They opened my head and closed it back up,'' she said. ``But they did remove some more tumor. Within four weeks of the first surgery, it had started growing again.''

Now she walks around with an intravenous tube and a pouch containing antibiotics aimed at clearing up the infection before she goes back to Duke for treatment to fight the tumor itself.

Debbie's husband, Mike Minick, is a field engineer for Pizzagalli Construction Co., and she is covered by his company medical insurance. The insurance pays 80 percent of a lot of the expenses, but does not cover some.

``But the 20 percent we have to pay is a lot when the bills are as big as these,'' she said.

Bills owed to Maryview and Portsmouth General hospitals alone added up to almost $50,000 - and that didn't include doctors and special services, she said. Nor does that include the visits to Duke and bills incurred there.

The insurance company paid $40,000 of the hospital bills, leaving $10,000 for the Minicks to pay.

``I sat down one night recently and sent everybody we owed $75,'' he said. ``I thought that was pretty good, but one hospital called up and said that wasn't enough.''

Cancer and other serious illness can ``ruin your credit, and there's not much a person can do about it,'' Mike Minick added.

However, some of his friends and co-workers are trying to help.

A group of them have set up Keep the Faith, a nonprofit organization established through Life Savings Bank in Portsmouth.

Mike Minick, 33, is a rock and country musician. Some of his friends in the music business are staging a benefit Saturday at Stooge's in the Timberlake Shopping Center on Holland Road in Virginia Beach. There will be music from 2 p.m. until 2 a.m. and raffles throughout the day of donated items. Those who attend will be asked to make a minimum donation of $5.

On April 26, Keep the Faith will stage an auction, flea market and bake sale at the First Pentecostal Church on Turnpike Road. The committee is seeking donations of new merchandise from merchants to be raffled during the day of the sale. For information, call Angie Davis at 465-3950.

Persons who wish to make contributions may send them to Keep the Faith, P.O. Box 9843, Chesapeake, Va. 23321. All donations are tax-deductible.

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