Hi, I'm Brian Shields. Fourty-seven years old, married to a beautiful wife, who just gave birth to my second son on April 15th.


Our other son, Samuel, is ten years old and a very social and outgoing personality.  We were not expecting John Michael to come along, but he's a perfect little chunk-a-lump.  Our family has been though some good timesand bad times, but things were really looking up.



Then I went to the emergency room because I was having a lot of trouble swallowing and keeping anything down.  I just wanted to get some IV fluids in my body so I could work the next day. The PA at the hospital couldn;t figure out exactly what was  happening, so he had me take a CT scan with contrast.

After draining two bags of IV fluids, and waiting around 4 hours, the PA comes back in the room

He wouldn't meet my eyes, so I knew it wasn't going to be good news. I was hoping it was just residual effects from a sinus infection I was just getting over. I was wrong.

"While we were reviewing the results of your CT scan, we saw a lesion at the base of your esophagus, just at the top of the stomach, and two more lesions on your liver."

All I could hear at this point was the overly loud beating of my heart.

Nobody used the dreaded C-word, but I was going to be admitted into the hospital, and biopsies were to be performed as soon as they could get me into a operating room.

Three days later, I had a talk with one of the oncology doctors. The biopsy from the esophagus had just come back.

Adenocarcinoma.

Stage 4 and aggressive, as well as friable.

Not quite as bad as it could possibly be, but we were still waiting on results from the liver biopsy.

Hope springs eternal.

After two more days of clear liquid diet courtesy of the cafe in the basement of the building, the oncologist comes in again.

Not only is the esophageal cancer friable, it has definitely metastasized to the liver, surgery is off the table for now, until chemo and radiation can shrink the tumors.


The worst part of this whole ordeal so far, is that when we signed up for health insurance through my work, somehow my wife and son got covered, but I was left off.

My wife and I have been leaning on our extended family and all of our friends for help, and I am humbled by just how selfless and giving everyone has been. I have always been pretty hard-headed and stubborn about accepting help from others.

This situation is different.

I want to live to see my newborn son grown up.  I feel like me and my wife have finally gotten to the best parts of being married and having a wonderful family, and it's being taken away from me. With treatment, there is a small chance of remission. But those treatments being paid out of pocket, especially when I can't work, is really scaring me.

So here I am on gofundme, pleading for help that I desperately need.  My family is literally depending on the kindness of strangers, and anything you can spare would be an incredible help.