Support Frank "Rusty" McAllister

What a medical nightmare this has been!  In 2008 Rusty was diagnosed with Chronic lymphocytic Leukemia/Small Lymphocytic Leukemia. This is a slow progressing blood cancer with NO cure. He continues to be self employed in the construction field. He has been very successful up until April 2015 when his white blood cell count increased, his energy levels plummeted, and he had to slow down. He doesn't complain about not feeling well, he just plows through it.  Towards the end of 2015 he progresssively was getting worse. In February 2016 he contracted Influenza A, which had him hospitalized due to his oxygen levels being 74. Due to fluid building up in his right pleura cavity he received his first Therapeutic Thoracentesis, a needle inserted through the chest cavity, pulling out 1 liter of fluid. He also started 6 months of Chemo as soon as he left the hospital, but the 1st half of the treatment sent him back to the hospital for 4 days. They had to do another Thoracentesis which pulled out another 1 liter of fluid, he was then put on oxygen. Once released he continued the Chemo for 2 days every month which left him ill for 10-14 days after. In mid March he had another hospital stay and Thoracentesis. He was forced to let go his 2 employees due to his ongoing hospitalization. From this point on he was having fluid removed every 3 days on an out patient basis. They were pulling out 4-5 liters every time which the doctors were amazed with, even more amazed that his body could take it. Mid April they performed a Thorascic Surgery where they inserted a tube in his right pleural cavity, he could then drain fluid at home daily. This worked well, he drained about 2-3 liters daily. The Chemo was showing signs of working, the white blood cell count was down, but it did nothing for the fluid build up. Since June it has been hard to keep his oxygen levels above 89 even using the oxygen machine. If he moves his oxygen levels plummets. It was very hard to work with oxygen cords at a construction site, so he wasn't working. Mid June the drain stopped working so he had another procedure to pull out the fluid and insert a new tube. This wasn't successful due to the fluid getting thicker and not able to drain, so he was back to the Thoracentesis every 3 days to help with the fluid build up. In the later part of June he had another surgery to close off his Thoracic duct on his right pleural cavity in hope of stopping the fluid build up, it was unsuccessful. July 1st they inserted another tube and put TPA into it to dissolve the thickening of the fluid, it was unsuccessful. He spent July 3rd and 4th in the ER. July 7th he had his last Chemo treatment, followed by another hospital operation. They inserted a Denver shunt on his left side to help drain the fluid. He was in the hospital for 3 days. He can pump the shunt by pressing around his collar bone to have the pump pull the fluid from his pleural cavity and dumping in into another vein to distribute naturally through his body as the fluid contains nutrients that he had been losing. July 14th and 18th back to the Thoracentesis to drain fluid. He had to also be pumping the Denver shunt every 30 min.  He was then referred to a Cardiovascular surgeon. July 26th Rusty has a 4 hour+ surgery to clean out and rough up the right pleural cavity so the lung will adhear to it. Once in surgery they discovered a Strep Mitis subdural empyema infection. He was put in ICU for 24 hours then  transferred to the hospital. His daughter was getting married early September in the Rocky Mountains and he wasn't going to miss it due to the fluid build up which effected oxygen levels. So he refused to leave the hospital until they figured out a solution. They had a port put in right after the surgery for blood to be taken, antibiotics and on August 10th a liquid food process to use. He was no longer injesting solid foods. He was released from the hospital on August 15th. His fluid build up decreased significantly, and on Sept 1 he was able to stop the antibiotic and the liquid food. Everyone tells him that he should be on disability, but if you know Rusty he is the hardest worker out there. Plus he wouldn't be able to cover his family expenses with that income. His wife Jeanette was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2008 and has high medical cost herself. She is not able to work anymore and went on disability April 2013. So now with Rusty being the sole provider of the household he is trying to work as much as possible to make up for the missed work, but with winter weather coming this won't be enough time to catch up on medical bills and other debt that was accumulated over 2016 and higher medical cost coming up in 2017. Please help!