Dan Fick's Brain Cancer Journey

My amazing son, Dan Fick is great husband, Dad, brother, and son. He is going through what no 30 year old should have to go through. His wife, Sarah and children: Johnny and Michael, have been through a lot and really could use our help.

 

Over the past few years, Dan started to experience constant headaches, severe dizziness and vision issues. He saw several doctors, including headache specialists and neurologists. They all told him they "were migraines and would go away". They all had him try different types of medications, each one had worse and worse side affects. One doctor even had him get epidural steroid injections after finding arthritis in his neck. His symptoms didn't go away.  Dan tried chiropractor care for 3 times a week for 6 months and that didn't do anything either. His episodes increased so much, that he had to stay in bed, stop working some days, push through it other days, miss family events or go but just not mentally be there.

 

After fighting several times for MRI's, CT's, and just to be heard, Dan went back to back to the ER one more time, and begged for an MRI himself. They refused to do it. He left feeling so annoyed and discouraged, and just upset. 

Not too long after, Dan received a call from Nebraska Medicine.  They wanted to schedule an appointment with their Neurologist. Dan said, "I still don't know why or how they got my information. I never reached out to them. We believe this was God!". This neurologist is the one that finally scheduled an MRI and where he finally had an answer, but it wasn't one that he wanted to hear. Tumors. He had 2 tumors that were in his brain, causing these problems. These tumors were in places that didn't seem possible to remove, but Sarah and Dan were determined to get more answers.

 

They decided to reach out to Mayo Clinic and get a second opinion. The doctors wanted to see Dan and fast, to get a plan of attack, so they traveled to Minnesota. The doctor seemed confident to be able to remove one of the tumors, but the morning of the surgery, the doctor changed his mind and just wanted to get a biopsy of 1 of them. It was just too risky. Removing the larger tumor, on his motor cortex, could cause paralysis on the left side of his body.  During surgery, he opted for a craniotomy and was able to remove some of the smaller one, but did not want to remove it all. He did not touch the bigger one.

 

After traveling back to Nebraska, he got his diagnosis.. Oligodendroglioma (IDH Mutation) Stage 2 Brain Cancer. Brain Cancer at 30 years old.

 

Dan started radiation treatments quickly after and was doing great until his last week. On his 26th radiation treatment, he experienced a Grand Mal Seizure. He felt normal before the treatment, but right when it started, his left arm, left side of face, and vision went dead. He started yelling and they came in. He started ripping out multiple IVs and 10 people were trying to hold him down. He kept losing consciousness. But doesn't remember any of that. He took awhile to recover from that because his entire body was so sore. He completed his last day of radiation on the 30th of September! He will have a little bit of rest time left before starting chemotherapy for 6 months.

 

Dan and Sarah need our help. Johnny and Michael need our help. Dan had short term disability, but that has run out. For a couple who have always been a 2 income family, they are now a 1 income family and it is not easy. They are struggling with all of the medical expenses, missing work, and all the day to day things. Please find it in your heart to donate anything you can to help this amazing family.