Craig Schumacher, owner and operator of Wavelab Studios and certainly one of the most important people in Tucson music is having a tough time, physically and economically lately. Thankfully, people have already contributed over $10,000, but it sounds like that might not be enough. From the webpage set up to collect donations:

You may or may not be aware that Craig was diagnosed with head and neck cancer earlier this year. During what should have been a routine tonsillectomy, doctors discovered a mass that they found to be cancerous. Since the cancer was so close to his larynx, they made the decision to treat it medically rather than with surgery.

The good news is that Craig’s prognosis is positive (medical types place him in the 90 percentile for full recovery). His doctors believe that with the proper treatments (which have already begun), he stands a good chance of beating this. Craig is currently undergoing chemotherapy, which will be followed by radiation treatment with low dose weekly chemotherapy. All this will take a while and the radiation recovery time is up to 18 months from last treatment .

The bad news is that the treatments are particularly invasive, painful and costly (the first steps costs alone have been astronomical). Craig has some health insurance through his lovely wife Karen Lustig’s policy. Still, the out-of-pocket expenses will be enormous, not to mention the fact that there will be periods in which Craig will not be able to work during the various treatments.

Last year, Karen was diagnosed with breast cancer. Following a lumpectomy and radiation treatment, she is currently cancer-free. That is a fabulous outcome, of course, but these back-to-back cancer diagnoses have been tough on them, emotionally and financially.

As friends of the Schumacher/Lustig family, we are setting up this ChipIn account to help offset some of their out-of-pocket medical expenses and lost income from the studio.

Words of encouragement can be sent to Craig privately via email and/or publicly on the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Craig-Schumacher-VS-Cancer/137372263001183?sk=wall

Thank you for your time and consideration.
Susan Bauer Lee & Tim Lee