RICHLAND, Mich. — A couple of days ago, Marcie Miller saw a post on Facebook that reminded her of the type of person her friend Ken Koenig is, she said.
Koenig was once in an airport when he met a fellow traveler who had no money because his credit cards were either stolen or lost, she recalled.
“So Ken gave him enough money to stay in a hotel for two days and money for food,” Miller said during an interview with FOX 17.
Ken, who's originally from Michigan, is a “super person,” she said.
Lately, Miller has been raising money through online raffles to pay for his cancer treatment, she said. Residents and business owners have been giving her items and offering free services to include in the raffles.
“My son works for a local restaurant. They gave him a gift certificate. There was two gift certificates given by another restaurant,” Miller said. “Someone told me recently that she was going to give us one to her salon. A person who does 31 Bags also messaged me.”
Miller said Koenig was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, two days before Christmas 2018. Prior to that, he was cleaning out his garage at his home in South Carolina when a grill fell from a shelf and hit him in the head. He immediately began experiencing sever headaches.
“One night it was so bad he couldn’t take it,” Miller recalled with tears in her eyes. “So, [his wife] took him to the hospital and they did a scan and found a big tumor and told him to ‘go home and enjoy the holidays ‘cause this is it.’”
Koenig was given three months to live, she said.
However, he’s continued to fight the cancer but his journey has been ‘up and down,' she said.
“One day he’ll be fine and the next day he can’t put a sentence together,” Miller said. “He’s now blind in his right eye.”
Amid the pain, doctors have created a vaccine just for Koenig, Miller said. During a recent scan, doctors took a part of the tumor and made a vaccine specifically for his tumor.
However, it costs $20,000 she said. And, it’s in the United Kingdom.
“It’s so incredibly expensive that it was like if they don’t find the money, he won’t be able to have it,” Miller said. “It’s his last chance.”
Miller said so far the Healing For Ken raffles have raised $625. She’s grateful for every dollar and appreciates every person who donated. None of the donors have ever me Koenig yet they’re helping to save his life.
“Sometimes it feels like there’s not a lot of good people because you run into people in bad moods or whatever,” she said. “There are a lot of good people out there still.”
***If you’d like to make a donation or contribution, click here.***
