Brian’s Brawlers

On September 14th Brian Gourley was diagnosed with duodenal adenocarcinoma (small intestine cancer), this is a rare and aggressive cancer.

 

From Brian's wife Maizie Gourley: "The morning of 09/09 Brian Gourley woke up with crushing chest pain and shortness of breath. He went to urgent care where they did a bunch of tests and ended up sending him to the ER for high blood pressure (221/119) and super high liver enzymes. They did an ultra sound and CAT scan that showed a mass. He had an endoscopy and they put in a biliary stent. The mass and the surrounding lymph nodes were biopsied. The mass came back as an adenocarcinoma. On October 6 Brian went in for another biopsy. The biopsy has confirmed that the cancer has spread to Brian's liver. He is no longer a candidate for surgery

 

The type of cancer Brian has is incredibly rare and there is almost no data on treatment so they will be treating it similar to how they would treat colon cancer. The first step is to get Brian a duodenal stent to open up his small intestine. He has lost 25 pounds and we need to get more nutrition to stay down. He will have a port catheter placed as well to be used for treatment and blood draws and they will be doing a PET scan to look for other areas of concern. These things will all be completed in the next couple weeks but as soon as he gets his duodenal stent he will be starting aggressive chemotherapy. The goal is to shrink the tumor as much as possible and hopefully be able to remove the stent. Although the odds are not great, there is a chance that if the tumor can be shrunk significantly with the chemo, we could consider using ablation to attempt to destroy the cancer on the liver and then potentially do the whipple surgery to remove the tumor. There are a lot of things that need to come together to make this an option, but it gives us a glimmer of hope. Once started, Brian will go every 2 weeks for chemo. He will spend 5+ hours in clinic and then go home on a pump for an additional 46 hours of chemo treatment each time for 6 sessions and then we will do a new scan and evaluate. There are some potential side effects but it sounds like the worst ones are severe sensitivity to cold (should be fun with winter coming) and diarrhea. Most patients keep their hair so I may be able to convince him to get a haircut now. We may also consider doing next generation genetic testing on the tumor to potentially find other ways to treat it.

 

We cannot say enough how grateful we are for all of the love, support, donations, and prayers we have received so far. This is going to be a marathon and we are so blessed to have you all to help us through it. Please keep those prayers coming. "

 

Brian and his family need our help. Brian is not working and Maizie is only working part time to help care for Brian. Lets show them our love and support. Money raised will be used for living expenses and medical expenses during this time. Please share this page with anyone who may be willing to help this amazing family during these challenging times.