Help David Fight Cancer

Hello, my name is Jacky Turnage and I am fundraising to help my younger brother David Elder with his sudden and unexpected fight with colon cancer.

On October 3rd 2023, just before David's 35th birthday, he went to the doctor for stomach pain he had been experiencing. Pretty quickly the doctors realized something was very wrong. They scheduled a colonoscopy for November 1st where they found a 4-inch mass and performed biopsies of it and surrounding lymph nodes for testing. Initial results were promising. While the mass was large, the doctor felt it had been slow-growing over time, and initial lymph node results were negative for cancer cells.

His surgery was scheduled for December 15th 2023, about 10 weeks after his initial Doctors visit. The doctor felt he should be ok to wait for the best surgeon to be available since he believed the tumor to be slow-growing. However, his side effects began to worsen and a more rapid pace than doctors thought. David did his best to continue life as normal but by December 4th he was in too much pain to continue to work and was put on temporary disability through FMLA.

At the time of this diagnosis, David was working a night shift at his job that offered him higher pay but the temporary disability only covers a portion of your pay and does not include a night shift differential.

Thankfully David made it to his surgery date without having to have emergency surgery, though it was close. They were able to remove the entire mass, however, it had perforated the colon wall, which was not a good sign. They also removed 23 lymph nodes for analysis to see if the cancer had spread.

David spent the holidays recovering from his surgery and waiting on news from the doctors to see what the next steps would be. We were still hopeful that removing the tumor would be it and David would not have to do chemo.

Unfortunately, 4 of 23 lymph nodes were positive for metastatic carcinoma, and his official diagnosis was listed as Colonic Adenocarcinoma stage 3B, which was then upgraded to stage 3C.

It was decided that an aggressive course of chemo would be necessary to try to make sure all of the cancer is eradicated. David had a mediport installed in his chest on January 18th and he was able to start chemo on January 29th. He will have to undergo treatment every 2 weeks over 6 months for a total of 13 sessions.

As you can imagine, David could use all of our support and help right now.

If you can help out financially, even in any small way, it would help him stay afloat while he deals with chemo over the next six months and my family will be forever grateful.

It would be so great if he could focus on healing and not paying rent and mounting medical bills.

He hasn't been able to work since early December 2023 and his short-term disability is only paying about 50% of his former wage due to not covering the night shift differential. David will be receiving chemo treatments through July 2024 at a minimum.

We do know that things are tough right now for so many families so we understand if donating is not an option, please keep him in your thoughts and help us share this with others.

I would also like to note that colon cancer, and cancer in general in young people is skyrocketing and early detection is a lifesaver.

I urge everyone to be diligent about annual wellness exams and bloodwork.

Please take it seriously if you feel like something is off.

We would like to thank everyone for their support for David during this hard time in his life,

We appreciate all of you.

With Love,

Jacky & the Elder Family