Brian Lee is such a devoted partner and father who has worked for several years on the road as a contractor. In September of 2024, he started noticing symptoms and just not feeling very well. After symptoms became concerningly worse, Brian went to the ER on 11/18/2024. They did some testing and referred him to a urologist.

They met with the urologist on 11/22/24. He immediately began a plan to figure out what was going on. He scheduled Brian for a CT and cystoscopy on 11/26/2024. The scope revealed several tumors inside of the bladder, and he was officially diagnosed with non-muscle invasive high-grade urothelial carcinoma.

Brian was scheduled for a resection surgery on 12/04/2024. The doctor was unable to remove all the tumors safely, so a second surgery was done on 1/09/2025. After healing from surgery, he started a 6-week induction phase of BCG (which is a form of immunotherapy).

Brian had his scope following immunotherapy on 6/17/25 to see if the immunotherapy was successful. Unfortunately, it revealed the cancer had returned, and he had to undergo another bladder resection surgery on 7/02/2025. He is currently undergoing another 6 weeks of immunotherapy.

In 2-3 weeks, he will be undergoing yet another scope to see what progress the BCG treatments have made on the cancer. If there is improvement, they are hoping to get him into a drug trial, and he can resume working. If there isn’t enough improvement, then he will have to have another resection surgery, and the BCG will have to possibly start all over again, and he will not be able to work again for another 2-3 months.

During the first couple of months, they were getting set up with a new health insurance company and were denied coverage because it was considered a pre-existing condition. Each BCG treatment cost them around $400. They couldn’t wait until they had a new insurance company to accept them to have the 3 surgeries and treatments; they had to have the necessary treatments at an out-of-pocket expense. This round of treatments, they were able to find another insurance company that did work with them, and the cost was much less, but they are still feeling the effects of Brian not being able to work during treatments on top of the medical bills that have accumulated.

Brian will no longer be able to travel for work and will have to find local employment once he is able to return to work. They are needing help at this time to keep up with daily expenses and monthly bills until Brian can return to regular work.