ThePhotoDept Chris Sturm

[TryingMyBest]

It’s his girlfriend who is a nurse.I think they live together.

I think he tried but don’t think he was able to get insurance though ACA because he now is saying he hasn’t been able to get on a “state” program. He said somoen he deals with at the hospital was “surprised.” I would not have been trying to get on the “state” program if he had succeeded in getting insurance via ACA. His “surprise” about not getting on the state program strikes me as entitlement.

I did break down last night and watch his latest video out of curiosity. He is coming across a lot less cocky. My guess is because he found out he can’t “game” the ACA insurance program by only signing o because he has cancer, can‘t get the state to cover his medical expenses, and has gotten a realistic idea from the hospital of what all the cutting edge medical care is going to cost him.

It‘s clear that his followers who comment on his videos are not picking up on this and just feel sorry for him.I aging their outrage if anyone commented about him not being willing to pay for insurance via the ACA when he thought he was healthy, then wanting to get it when he has cancer.

The move to California will be a big deal for his girlfriend.

1. She has had a front row seat to his attitudes - including his admitted stubborn refusal to listen to her about eating healthy for weeks after his diagnosis. Who knows what else he was stubborn about and she works with cancer patients so she had a wealth of useful information to share with him. That is hubris, if not sexism.. Does she want to follow a man like that across the country?

2. She knows he might only live 2 or 3 years after they move so does she want to uproot herself for that? She would start over as a nurse and new nurses often are at a disadvantage versus experienced nurses at work in things like picking shifts and also in terms of being respected.

3. Is he going to marry her or is she going to move across the country to continue to be a girlfriend? Has he been unwilling to commit to her and is he now expecting her to provide the level of support a married person would expect from their spouse?

I imagine if they did get married he would have insurance thru her employer.

 

[Elpis]

Well, hopefully we won't see any more dangerous joy rides. He had a damned actual stroke and they "think" they've got him sorted with steroids and anti-seizure drugs?? And even if he was perfectly normal, it's dangerous to make a video while driving. Period.

I'm almost hoping he just decided it would be a cool backdrop to "look like" he was driving when he was actually set up in front of a green screen, pretending to drive (whch is what it looked like to me). At least that's not endangering other people.

Then I'm even more annoyed that he said he bought insurance on the marketplace - and then proceeded to say poor poor me, I have no savings, I HAVE NO INSURANCE... (he said that more than once). He was pushing the poor poor pitiful me thing, to the point of LYING, in order to get donations. Which he got. Oh well. At least we have a place like this to analyze these youtubers, some of whom are definitely unethical grifters!

 

[AlwaysScience]

I had breast cancer in 2014 and unrelated colon cancer in 2021. Wonder what bogus vaccine I can blame that on. Maybe the flu jab. Idiots.

I follow a woman with a severely disabled child. She and the child's dad live pretty well and but they don't get married because the child needs Medicaid. Kinda puts me off but God bless them for taking such wonderful care of that poor little kid.

We do have a lot of “working poor” people in the US. They don’t make enough to pay for housing, utilities, food and medical care but they are not poor enough to qualify for government programs. A lot of USpoliticians say that people on government programs should work, but there is no government paid childcare so those people have a safe place to leave their kids when they go to work. It’s a horrible system.
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They moved to Wisconsin for her to attend nursing school. He had to sell some of his cameras to help move so it appears he doesn't have much savings. I don't know if he will become a salaried employee of Justin's camera shop when they move or whether they can figure out a way to keep him on MediCal. He seems very optimistic about putting this whole situation behind him at some point but, if that positive attitude is what is keeping him going, than I won't say anything negative about that.

Thanks for this information. In Wisconsin since he lives with his girlfriend her income prevents him from qualifying for Wisconsin Medicaid. The monthly income cutoff there is $1,700.

Im guessing they will move in with his dad when they move to California. Since they are not married her income won’t count. And Medi-Cal, California Medicaid, no longer considers assets - just income.

I doubt he will work full time in California because of the time he will need for cancer treatment and the side effects.

In 2023 the ACA Open Enrollment period started on November 1 and enrollment could be effective as early as January 1, 2024. If it’s the same for the next open enrollment period, he needs the GoFundMe money for now until when he gets on Medi-Cal.

I assume he has looked into which UCLA oncologists accept Medi-Cal. When he was diagnosed with cancer he evidently thought he could buy medical insurance through the ACA whenever he wanted to and then found that no one has to sell him insurance after the end of the open enrollment period, unless he meets certain criteria. Hopefully he now understands the necessity of learning how insurance works.

 

[AlwaysScience]

A new vlog including driving to his next treatment. He did mention that he's very stubborn which might indicate why he's filming in the car even though so many people told him he shouldn't. His good news is that the cancer is EGFR positive. Was that Jenny's type also? His is also in his spine.

I’m seeing conflicting info online.One source says EGFR positive means survival estimate in NSC lung cancer with mets is only 4-6 months. Central nervous system mets are common with EGFR - like mets to the spine. But another article says it has a better prognosis. Looks like there is more than one EGFR mutation so that might explain the difference.

 

[mayday mayday]

Good question. I don’t remember. But it was available when she was alive, at least for people in clinical trials. It seems very very good at extending life for people with this type of lung cancer if they stay on it.

Ivory from Ivory's Diary was on Tagrisso, she was told it would work for about 19 months. In this video from Oct 2022 she had been on it for 20 months and her Stage 4 disease was stable. She looked so well at this time in the video ... but dammit the Tagrisso soon stopped working and she passed away in early May 2023. She was Mom to a teenage daughter and to a son who was around 6 years old when she passed. Her vlogs are very informative about her cancer and treatments. Unlike someone else ...

 

[AlwaysScience]

Chris has a new video up on YouTube. He has started gamma knife treatments for brain mets. He seems upbeat, though concerned about treatment costs. I hope he shares a lot about the financial burden because a lot of Americans have no clue that even cancer patients with insurance often end up filing bankruptcy due to the copayments.

Looks like survival time after gamma knife for NSC lung cancer brain mets is typically between 9 and 13 months. As people point out often, survival time estimates are always based on looking back and current treatments might give patients more time. Seems that a lot of people in the comments are hoping he gets remission. They clearly have not looked up survival info for stage 4 NSC lung cancer with brain mets.

 

[AlwaysScience]

I think what he means by state insurance is Medicaid but he might have too many assets even if he isn't working now.

I'm confused about this. His new job is working for Jason Lee at his camera shop in CA. Why would he be getting a salary now if he isn't actually working in CA? They just met in Dec so did Lee put him/keep him on the payroll just so he could get medical insurance? I don't think he's getting that new insurance policy otherwise he wouldn't be pushing to get state insurance. Lee did give $1000 to his GFM.

Chris said in one of his early videos that he would not be eligible for medical insurance through his employer until sometime in April, but he did not say who the employer was or whether the employer was in Michigan or California. He may have gotten a job in Wisconsin and not told his employer that he was planning to move to California this year.

Agree that the state program he mentioned is probably Medicaid but his inability to qualify does not necessarily mean he has assets. If a 2 person household in Wisconsin has more than $1700/month income he doesn’t qualify. Medicaid is for people in poverty. I doubt his girlfriend’s hospital nursing job pay is so low that they live in poverty.

I don’t know anything about the businesses that Jason Lee owns and whether the employees have employer medical insurance. But if a small employer, like a camera shop, adds a person being treated for cancer to their medical insurance, then the monthly premiums will increase a lot. Maybe not immediately - the monthly premium amount might be locked in for the current benefit year.

So I wouldn’t assume that the job there is a sure thing, or that it will include employer sponsored medical insurance. He might have to go on the ACA exchange to buy insurance if he moves to California.

I envy people in the other developed countries around the world since their medical insurance is not connected to their employemnt.They don’t live in fear of losing their jobs and thus their medical insurance. And they have freedom to change employers without any worry about it affecting the cost of their insurance, The US is the only developed country with this hideous, profit driven medical insurance.
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I apologize and I know I'm like a crazed dog with a bone, but can someone explain away what he said on the video I posted on page 1 of this thread, at minute 2.20 -- Chris literally said this:

"I had to buy some random insurance on the marketplace just to be able to get to be seen by a doctor which I’m finally doing tomorrow, my birthday, Wednesday, March 20th"

I think he went online and applied for insurance under the ACA. But I doubt his application was accepted as I’m not aware of him meeting any of the requirements that allow people to buy insurance outside of the annual open enrollment period. The 2024 open enrollment period ended January 15.

His wife being a nurse in the cancer treatment part of that hospital may have made it possible for him to get seen by doctors there without having insurance. The fact that we are trying to figure this stuff out is because he has not been willing to fully disclose the situation.

 

[Elpis]

I think he's about to move to California. He posted that he's bought walkie-talkies that cover long distances because he doesn't want to risk texting while driving there, with his girlfriend I presume. Ever the cautious driver, you know.

 

[riley123]

Maybe he is confusing Medicare with Medicaid.

Yes, because people have to be receiving Social Sec Disability for 24 months before they start getting Medicare.

 

[Bassethoundmama]

I know this thread has gone silent but I do check in on you tube and his insta every so often. Chris hasn't posted in quite some time on you tube (at least one month) but I saw his girlfriend post a picture yesterday. I'm not sure why he's not updating people but I wish him well.

 

[Elpis]

Thanks for the screenshots, Makes sense. Some writing on the screen obscured the word 'Scary' for me, and I'm too tech challenged to find it.

I had been thinking that his sudden silence online, especially when he'd been so vocal, had something to do with us. Maybe some would say his issues were trivial: driving while under care for seizures and brain mets! (if he was driving, and I still wonder) Saying clearly that he had "bought" an obamacare policy (though he was annoyed that he had to buy it in order to see a doctor) - but THEN, when asking for money, he claimed he had no insurance at all. So which one was the truth?? He never cleared that up. Anyway... I would never have commented if these glaring issues didn't exist.

I do think tattle performs an important service, scrutinizing people who are asking the public for money. They owe their donors the whole truth and they don't always provide that, and we're a kind of cyber security firm, of sorts. Or something like that. A form of oversight, when there's really nobody else around to do it!

 

[AlwaysScience]

I don't think this would not be the first time she moved cross country with him it seems. I don't think I'll be continuing to watch his journey, I wish him well but I think he comes across as an arrogant ass.

Damn! She moved with him 2.5 yrs ago and she is still his “girlfriend” - not his fiance. If she grew up in Oklahoma then she grew up with the evangelical Christian patriarchy belief system. Wonder if she has even heard of the decentering men and defying patriarchy movement that US women in their 20’s and 30’s are championing. She may be the sole provider of consistent income in that relationship.

Admittedly I don’t have a lot of information about the man, but I’m seeing so many red flags re Chris Sturm based on things he says online and what we know of his actions.

 

[riley123]

He posted many comments on his IG yesterday. Apparently he told people to get the covid vaccine when it came out so these are responses to that.

Chris was interviewed on a photography podcast, Analog Talk. He doesn't know when they will move to CA but he'll be treated at UCLA. He's had a hard time getting on state insurance in Wisconsin but he'll qualify for MediCal easily so it's a good thing that he's unemployed. They had considered getting married to get on her insurance but it would cost them more. I assume whatever job he had that he hadn't worked long enough to get coverage is now gone.

He is very optimistic about his prognosis and what is being planned for the new film developing portion of Justin Lee's camera shop. They talk all the time planning it with Justin also interested in how he's doing. He thinks his treatments will allow him to continue to work on that.

All of his GFM money has been spent at the hospital. His bill so far, with treatments, is about $85,000 for his portion.

 

[PuzzlesAndWine]

Please tell me this isn't more stupid bullshit about the Covid vaccine.

I guess it appears to be. I looked at his first cancer video and the recent comments are all about it, they seem hateful. Wondering what Chris said to make them feel this way about him? I assume he put people down for not getting vaccinated? Either way, the comments are pretty harsh.

 

[riley123]

He has a new video and says it will be the last cancer update video because it's a photography channel and wants to keep his cancer information more private. The cancer journey is moving to a patreon account. The chemo has affected his appearance so he is standing at a distance, they move to CA July 1 so he can be treated at UCLA and a recent MRI shows that his brain mets are gone. I imagine it was surprising to go from being a relative unknown to having strangers post positive and also many negative comments. Of course he opened himself up by asking for donations from the public. I don't know how many people will subscribe to a patreon account.

I watched the video and have no idea what the title "Truth about My Cancer" means. I didn't hear anything new but maybe I'm wrong. The truth is he has cancer and is being treated for it.

 

[Elpis]

A sensible update on Instagram - not a single e-beg! No driving while looking at the camera, no baby feeding - he's turning into a normie! (I hope) He's talking about Tagrisso, which is the drug Ivory's Diary was on. Maybe Jenny Apple? Probably loads of lung cancer patients.

"Currently, I am working on getting my insurance/medicare sorted out so I don’t have to pay $20k a month, and luckily this first 30 day supply was made possible through the pharmacy repository, which is basically donated medication. A miracle. This is step one in a two pronged attack and I couldn’t be more excited to start. Here we go"

 

[Elpis]

A woman I was following online died recently. She had cholangiocarcinoma but the type of chemo she had never made her hair fall out so she looked remarkably normal until the last few weeks of her life. My online life has taught me a lot about cancer and disabilities.

I know what you mean about learning so much from people dealing with difficult and even tragic situations. My adult son has serious disabilities and lives at home still, and no therapy could do for me what the perspective does that I get from following people facing immense challenges. It isn't really 'misery loves company' but the chance to learn from others how to face chronic fear and sorrow. It's not something you learn from school but it's such a common human condition - life is so fragile, for so many of us. Well, just about all of us, eventually.

 

[AlwaysScience]

I noticed this evening that the views on the last few videos have declined significantly. His initial, "I have cancer" video view count is roughly 170,000 while the latest two videos are at 5k and 7.5k respectively. His GFM collected almost $50k in less than 2 weeks, even it has seen a major decrease in donations. In no way am I saying $56k is little, I just mean the momentum has stalled.

I would like to think that people are starting to notice and be concerned about how Chris Sturm seems to limit the information he shares to generate sympathy, but it might just be that the “death watchers” have moved on since he shared that he got good news about his genetic mutation.

 

[Elpis]

In his March 19 youtube video, he said that bit about his work insurance wouldn't go in effect till the next month -- and then he said, at 2:31 in the linked video, "I had to buy some random insurance on the marketplace just to be able to be seen by a doctor which I'm finally doing tomorrow" - so apparently on that date (or before) he did get insurance.

But then, like in the next sentence, he said "since I don't have any insurance"... And then he also said, "I don't have any savings or, like I said, any insurance..." WTF?

Anyway... It'll be interesting to see if he does any more driving videography. I'm still weirded out by that, but I guess we'll see how this transpires. Sorry for him, of course. Good he's going to be with his dad in California.

 

[Elpis]

He said he actually paid for a policy on the ACA (and seemed annoyed that he had to buy it because his work insurance would be available the next month - April). This was just several weeks ago.

Oh and it just occurred to me - didn't he say his "wife" was a nurse? If so, she could put him on her policy. Or if she didn't get insurance through work, she could sign up at the ACA website and put him on her policy that way. But maybe she's just a girlfriend...

What I really think: a whole lotta lying is going on.

But anyway.... yeah, I hope you're right and I'm gonna try to disengage because he annoys me a lot.