Help Gabe Kick Cancers Butt!

Hello friends and family. I am setting up this fundraiser for a very dear frind of mine. Last December my best friend's husband Gabe had what he thought was just a minor cold. He was coughing and had chest pain (which we all often take for granted and pass off as just a nuisance). Gabe ended up in the emergency room because the pain in his chest was so bad that he thought he may be having heart trouble. That night, doctors found a large mass in his chest. January became a whirlwind of hospital stays and doctor appointments as it was unclear what the mass was. But unfortnately, on January 16 he was diagnosed with a rare form of Cancer; Angiosarcoma; a cancer of the inner lining of blood vessels, and it can occur in any area of the body. Gabe's Cancer was found between his ribs and his lungs.

Due to the type of Cancer that he had, by the end of January doctors began weekly chemotherapy treatments in hopes of shrinking the tumor to a size that would be viable for surgery. After just 11 weeks of treatments, while the chemotherapy was sucessful in 'killing' the active cancer cells in the tumor, it also oddly enough had a negative effect; it increased the size of the tumor causing swelling in Gabe's chest and extreme pain and difficulty breathing. Surgery now became a life or death situation because if the doctors continued chemotherapy there was a chance that the tumor would continue to grow and suffocate all of the organs in Gabe's chest cavity.

So on May 15th, doctors performed a 12 hour surgery and removed what turned out to be an 8 pound tumor! He had to be cut from underarm to underarm and then an additional six inches on his back just to remove the tumor. Unfortunately, they learned that the tumor was also in the top lobe of Gabe's lung and it had to be removed during the surgery. He had to be in the ICU for 4 days and the hospital a total of 9 days.

After the surgery doctor's could not be sure that all the Cancer was gone, so two months later, in July Gabe had to restart chemo treatments, except this time, instead of weekly, they are once a month, but require a 4 day stay in the hospital as the chemo treatments are much stronger and completely wipe out his immune system, making him weak, tired and much sicker than the first rounds of treatment.

As everyone knows, Cancer is an ugly disease. It not only affects the person diagnosed mentally and physically, but it also directly affects your home life, friends and family. Because of his diagnosis, Gabe has not only lost time at work due to the multitude of treatments, hospital stays and doctors appointments, but has also been unable to keep up with daily needs at home. In addition, his wife Dana takes time off of work to make sure she is able to attend all doctors appointments, treatments and his surgery. In a nutshell, his cancer has turned their lives upside down.

I have set up this fundraiser in hopes of raising money for Gabe and his family to help ease the financial burden that Cancer has had on him and his family. Any donations made will go to help him family pay for his medical bills, food, household needs and any other support they require to help Gabe kick Cancer's butt!

If you are unable to donate, please share, share share!!