Not all the news is bad

[easymoney]

Boss selling Montgomery restaurant to save employee with brain tumor

by Tiffany Craig / KHOU 11 News

khou.com

Posted on January 6, 2014 at 10:39 PM

Updated today at 11:16 AM

MONTGOMERY, Texas -- Along Highway 105 in Montgomery, you'll find the Kaiserhof Restaurant and Wunderbar. You'll also find a waitress extraordinaire named Brittany Mathis.

"I have my good days and my bad," said Mathis.

The 19-year-old employee doesn't look or sound sick, but she is -- and everyone at the authentic German restaurant knows it.

It started with a rash on her leg.

"I went to the hospital and found out it was my blood clotting," Mathis told us. "So, they wanted to keep me and do CAT scans and MRIs and the next day they came in and told me I had a tumor."

Mathis doesn't have insurance and hasn't yet signed up for Affordable Healthcare. The medical bills are piling up and she can't even afford to find out if the tumor is benign or malignant.

That's where her boss comes in.

"I just can't be standing by and doing nothing," said Kaiserhof owner Michael De Beyer. "I have to try something because it's not right."

So De Beyer has decided to sell his family's 6,000 square foot restaurant and donate money to Mathis.

"Here's a family, they really work hard they have a lot of stuff against them in the past and they are not holding their hand open they didn't even ask anybody for help," said De Beyer.

The Mathis family has been through a lot.

Mathis' older sister and mom work at the restaurant too.

In 2000, Brittany's dad John Mathis, had a brain tumor that no one knew about. When it ruptured, it was unexpected and fatal.

"I guess sort of the same thing Brittany is going through," admitted Barbara Mathis, Brittany's mom. "I just want her to get help."

The idea that someone could give so much is a bit overwhelming for the entire Mathis family.

"I really think it’s an amazing blessing and can't thank him enough and his family," Mathis said. "Never thought that anybody would do that and he did and it makes me feel really good."

De Beyer said he has owned the restaurant for 17 years and believes it's worth as much as $2 million. He also wants to sell the business to spend more time with his wife and two children.

He's tried to sell the restaurant before, and once turned down an offer for $1.3 million.

[XLFD]

I wish the article's reporter would have probed a little further as to why the young lady, Brittany, did not apply for the ACA, which would have allowed her to have insurance for this pre-existing condition.  Depending on the answer, I would then be wondering (because I am a natural skeptic about charity being given so publicly) about whether it could be a scheme to help him sell the restaurant. 

It's a sad tale for Brittany either way as she will have to go through so much and live with the fear of recurrence even if she gets cured, and a great act of kindness either way if the owner does sell and follow through with his generosity.

[Willy]

I was wondering the same thing. I would have immediately ran down to the nearest exchange and signed up for Obama care.

[Dave]

Always nice when a good deed is done for someone in need. One of my co-workers was a recipient of act of kindness just a few days ago. The place she lives at heats with propane (I think.. some sort of fuel anyway), ended up their tank hit empty just before the weekend so they were without heat going into the nasty weather we've had recently. Of course the company they use was closed Sat so they had to wait til Mon before they could call and talk to someone about how much it would cost to get filled up that day, she was told $200. Of course that was more then she was hoping so the plan was just to rough it out for a few more days. At some point during the day, she talked to a co-worker and the co-worker wrote her a check on the spot for $200... my co-worker was needless to say surprised and grateful at the act of kindness.