We lost everything.

My name is Nancy Cartwright. I am a 72 year old from Las Vegas, NV. In April 2007, my husband was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. He had a stem cell transplant and then had to take the Celgene drug Thalomid for three years. We had to pay a share of a very old drug that lists for $5,000 to $9,000. Thalomid is the brand name version of thalidomide, a drug that has been around since the 1950s.

To keep my husband alive in the two years after his diagnosis, we had spent both 401ks, our entire savings and had to file bankruptcy in 2009 on everything but our house.  We lost everything.

Before his diagnosis, he worked as a general manager for a ceiling, fan and lighting restoration company; I was their bookkeeper. Unfortunately, shortly after his diagnosis, he was forced to leave.

Even with a $10,000 grant, his medications were still expensive. We got behind on our house payments and eventually lost our home.

Our financial stressors were so extreme we decided to move down to Ecuador.

Besides bearing witness to my husband’s physical pain, I also witnessed the immense mental toll the cost of his medication took on him.  It’s so hard to watch someone suffer and not be able to do anything to help. My hair even began to thin from stressing over his medication costs.

We lived in Ecuador for 18 months. After 30 years of marriage, my husband died in Ecuador in 2015 at the age of 66.

My husband had a great smile and sense of humor; he was always teasing me. We were like two peas in a pod. He was a type of man that everyone loved.

I was sickened when I learned Bob Hugin, the CEO of the company that makes the monopoly drug Thalomid, the man who contributed to our financial ruin, is running for the U.S. Senate.

If given a chance to become Senator, Bob Hugin will only look out for the rich and gouge the rest of the people like us. He cost us everything. He cannot win.