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This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Anthony Olson wanted a career, children, a partner with whom he could hike Montana’s trails. Despite the diabetes diagnosis at age 4, the anemia, the kidney transplant that failed at age 29, the dialysis, he clung to those dreams. He attended community college and later moved from his parents’ house in Helena to study accounting at Montana Tech in Butte. He thought he might live a nearly normal life.
All of that was taken away in early 2011 when an oncologist at St. Peter’s, Helena’s only hospital, diagnosed him with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a blood disorder that’s often described as pre-leukemia. The life expectancy of MDS patients is short. "He told me that without treatment, I’d be dead before the end of the year," Olson said. He was 33.
"That…
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