*Fund-raiser held for cancer-stricken Marine
Sgt. Mike Baker fought for his country in Iraq and now he's fighting for his life and needs his community's help. A spaghetti dinner fund-raiser will be held Saturday to raise money for his expenses while he wrangles with his newest enemy, cancer.
http://www.hometownlife.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061103/NEWS/611030309
Article published Nov 3, 2006
BY MARTHA WOOD, STAFF WRITER
After serving two tours in Iraq, Baker of Royal Oak was diagnosed with neurofibrosarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of life-threatening cancer.
Baker was deployed in Iraq for eight months with a combat engineering battalion in the U.S. Marines in March 2003. He came home for six months and then went back as a tank driver.
He noticed a lump on his face, by his ear, during his second tour of duty. He was diagnosed when he returned home in June of 2005.
The fund-raiser will help Baker and his pregnant wife, Kelly, pay for trips to visit a sarcoma specialist regularly in Texas.
Baker's mom, Shelly Cingel, said the military pays for a good portion of his expenses, the trips are not paid for and they aren't sure what treatments will be covered.
Expenses must be paid ahead of time and are reimbursed. But 23-year-old Baker and his family are struggling to pay for everything up front. They are also worried since his cancer is so aggressive.
"We aren't leading people to believe the military is not taking care of Mike," Cingel said. "But we don't have time to waste."
All the money he doesn't use will be donated to cancer research.
So far Baker has had four surgeries. In the first surgery, the initial tumor, which was on his chin, was removed. It came back twice, larger than before. In his third surgery, half of his right ear was removed. The last surgery, in July, left the right side of his face paralyzed when the rest of his ear was removed.
Baker has been receiving chemotherapy treatments at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. He will undergo six treatments that last five days each. Every two to three months he visits a doctor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
So far the Baker family's efforts at fund-raising have been successful.
Cingel said they have received donations from military people around the country and from local efforts.
"People have been amazingly generous," she said. "They're so supportive of the troops."
The experience has been hard on Baker's wife, Kelly, as well. She is pregnant, due in February.
She graduated from college in December but has not been able to look for work as an elementary teacher. She got her first call for an interview the same week her husband was having surgery.
Even so, she's glad she's been able to spend so much time with Mike.
"Right now we spend every day together," she said.
But their lives have been put on hold.
"Basically what we had planned out for our life hasn't happened," she said. "We miss mostly just having a life."
The spaghetti dinner fund-raiser will be held from 4-7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4. The event is sponsored by the Free and Accepted Masons Ferndale Lodge #506. It will be held at the Berkley Masonic Temple at 2290 11 Mile Road. All proceeds will go to the Michael Baker Fund.
For information and to donate to the Michael Baker Fund via Paypal, visit www.joinmikesfight.com. Donations may also be sent to the Michael Baker Fund, c/o Kathy Lynn Donegan, 2414 Gulason Court, Troy, MI 48083. Contributions are also accepted at LaSalle Bank, where the fund is held.