A Las Vegas mother of a boy suffering from a rare cancer was forced to scramble to replace a $40,000 cancer medicine that a porch package thief stole from her home last week.
Mother Stacy Shavinsky was discouraged when a video of her home showed a thief running off with the precious and expensive medicine. “It just happened that this time it wasn’t a shirt or pair of shoes. It happened to be something that we desperately needed,” Shavinsky told KTNV-TV.
Shavinsky’s 14-year-old son Gage has a rare cancer called Systemic Mastocytosis. It is a cancer so rare that insurance won’t cover the $40,000 a month that the special medicine costs.
“I had to do a lot of begging and pleading, and I had to apply for financial assistance,” Shavinsky added. “We went to Salt Lake City and Los Angeles to get second opinions so we have done a lot of work to make sure this medication would be beneficial for him.”
A video shows the thief strolling up to the Shavinsky doorstep, bending down, and casually walking off with the priceless package.
Gage says that he has only been taking the medication for a short time and that it was just starting to work for him.
“I’m just sad. I know how much my mom worked for it,” he told the media. “And these pills are really helping me. I can really tell the difference. And just knowing that I’m going to have to wait to take them and the next couple of days. I’m going to feel really bad.”
Porch thefts are way up in the area, but many think the theft is worse than reports show because the theft is so common many no longer bother to report it.
“There’s just no accountability,” Shavinsky said. “When I talked to the police, they said there was an investigator in the neighborhood, so he happened to stop by, but if I had called dispatch it would have been five or six hours before someone actually came out.”
“And there needs to be some sort of consequences for his actions,” she said.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
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