Let's Help Lance Mercer Beat Lymphoma

KEXP is sad to report that legendary local photographer Lance Mercer has been diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkin’s follicular lymphoma. Not only is he a fixture in the Seattle music scene, but he's also father-in-law to KEXP DJ Troy Nelson. His daughter Mackenzie explains:

On Fathers Day June 15th 2014, a few hours before my sister Emma and I were supposed to take him out for dinner and a movie, he called to tell me he was at the hospital. He said he was having a follow up on a swollen lymphnode in his thigh that had been bothering him for a couple of weeks. While checking him in, the nurse discovered his lung didn't sound right. She then ordered a chest xray immediately. The xray came back and his entire left lung was opaque. His lung was filled to the brim with fluid, and it had pushed his heart over into the other side of his chest. A cat scan was ordered and everything after that seemed to happen very quickly. I've never experienced anything quite like sitting in a room with someone you love more than the World and having a doctor tell you his body is full of cancer. Its pretty Earth shattering, to say the least. You feel like the wind has been knocked out of you and you hope that at any moment you will wake up from this nightmare. Only you don't. We were whisked away to a room where we spent the next week. After several biopsies, a surgery, 10 lbs of fluid drained from his lung, and what seemed like endless poking and prodding, the doctors diagnosed him with stage 4 non-hodgkins follicular lymphoma. He started on chemo just 5 days after going in for a check up. His prognosis is good, however the medical bills are not.

Like most artists, Mercer has no healthy insurance, so his daughters have set up this fund to help raise money for his hospital bills. Let's help this local luminary kick cancer together.