Today I’m going to talk about my friend Jana.

I first met Jana in the virtual world of Azeroth in World of Warcraft (WoW) while both of us were in the Warsong Gulch (WSG) battleground – WSG is a capture the flag game and you have two teams of 10. Her character was Janka – then a pre 60 rogue. With her and our trusty friends Grokus, Meltiece, Kerrig, Salthair, Robauk, Noq (that’s me) and others we ruled the pre-cross server WSG … well, sometimes the Alliance would win, but come on… they’re Alliance SCUM! This was before the first expansion when the end goals were the level 60 and … hell I can’t even remember the dungeon that mattered back then. This was back in 2005 and I was new to the MMORP world – Janka was one of my early friends there and helped me feel like I belonged.

Throughout the years, sometimes every day, we’d play WoW together. In expansion after expansion Janka would be there with me as I explored this virtual world – we did dungeons together, battlegrounds, raids… craft materials for one another and became real friends – even though we’d never met. I even met her husband Cameron playing WoW. That was true of a lot of my WoW friends.

Through WoW and Facebook I got to know more and more about Jana and I’d see photos of her animals (she’s a dog and cat lover and has this huge heart) and stories about the crazy things they’d do. I found out about her job and what she does for a living. WoW helped me make a virtual friend a real life friend and I’m thankful to WoW for all the friends I made there. Time and again Jana would lend me virtual gold (not of any real value in the real world) for virtual items that seemed important back then… other things are more important you find out.

Here’s the rub…

Jana was recently diagnosed with uterine cancer, something the two of us can’t fight off in the land of Azeroth.

Because of circumstances in her and her husband’s life they do not have health insurance and the fight for Jana is just now beginning. Here’s a quote from her husbands blog:

“My research indicates that treatment of uterine cancer often runs about $100,000. Fortunately, MUSC offers patient assistance. We have applied for it and should hear back early next week if we are approved and to what extent. If approved, our costs could run anywhere from $4,000-$10,000. A ridiculous amount of money, but FAR better than the alternative!”

That’s an awful lot of money to raise just to have a chance at beating this thing. I want to help but I can’t do this alone and neither can Jana. I have faith in the people who I call friends in the world – whether I’ve met them on WoW, Facebook or even – gasp – in person that we can help Jana raise this money and fight.

I want your help and you can do this by following these steps:

1. Go read Jana’s husbands blog about what’s been going on so far (here is the link: http://cameronscottwright.wordpress.com )

2. Share that blog with your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit … friends (it’s called social networking for a reason)

3. Lastly, you can donate towards her cancer fund – if you can give $5 that would help… if all of my friends gave $5 she’d have the money to do this (click here to donate: PayPal )

When I have friends ask me to help them raise funds for dogs, running a race or their son or daughters school charity I give what I can if I can. It’s the right thing to do. Today I want to raise money to help a human (she’s really an orc) fight to stay alive… can you help me do that? Someday soon maybe people wont have to raise money to have a chance at staying alive – but at the moment we still do.

My friend Jana (or Janka as she’ll always be known to me) needs help – I’m hoping you can help me help her.