Hello. My name is Amber Bridges. Friend and cousin and Pastor's wife of Kyle and Desiree. Many of you know that Desiree has been on a health journey with Pancreatic cancer for over a year. She is amazing and strong and has a wonderful support system with family and church family. I am including the most recent update from her loving husband, Kyle. They are getting ready to encounter multiple flights a month to Houston to participate in a clinical trial. Some travel may be reimbursable, but not for 4-6 months. Deductibles alone are a huge chunk each year that they fight this cancer battle. Would you consider helping them out with this financial burden? And most importantly, agree in prayer for complete healing of Desiree's body! We are trusting the Lord for this healing!

Here is the update from Kyle:

Desiree Update 10/30/2022:

It’s been a while since we posted anything online, we have had several asking for an update so here is where we are right now.

Desiree has been on the same chemo now for about 8 months-ish. After the last couple of visits (we go to Houston every-other-month) with her team in Texas, they concluded that her current treatment isn’t working like it was before. The decision was made to look into other options (in addition to changing chemo meds) because there were really no great other options on the market that are FDA approved.

She has been through two of the three chemo’s currently on the market that are approved for her situation. Awhile back they sent off for genetic markers and to find out the make of this tumor and then the goal is to match a clinical trial with her genetic markers and go from there. They said it usually take 4-6 weeks to get some results, that was about 4-5 months ago. They told us if we heard something then she was a match but if no one contacted us it was likely she wasn’t a match for anything currently available.

So, skipping forward to this last week, we had not heard anything so we were told that nothing was currently available. The plan was to switch to another chemo that is “last in line chemo” (least effective) because she has tried 2 of the 3 FDA approved treatments available in her case. She was scheduled to begin this next round of chemo on Monday, October 31.

After months of frustration that nothing was happening (tumor shrinking) and things were going in the wrong direction, we got a call that MD Anderson may have found a new option.

A call was setup with the clinical trial team at MD Anderson earlier in the week and they went over a few options with us. But, as quick as we had some decent news the possibility fell flat. In order to get into these clinical trials, a new biopsy had to be obtained to make sure the bio-markers from the initial biopsy 18 months ago hadn’t changed or mutated.

Desiree’s team said that the tumor is currently unstable to the point that it was not safe to get a new biopsy.

So the plan was setup to try the last FDA approved medication that she would qualify for because the clinical trial options were not a possibility.

Before the dust was settled over that news, we had a call that the team found a different way to safely biopsy the tumor and that she would NOW likely qualify for clinical trials.

So, as you can imagine, emotions have been all over the place recently.

Now, skipping forward to today, we are waiting for all appointments to be scheduled. In the next couple of weeks we will begin the process of a clinical trial.

With the clinical trial there are multiple appointments and things that have to be completed first to check all the boxes. The next trip down she will get the first dose of medication (infusion treatment) and then over the next few months we will be back and forth to MD Anderson in Houston multiple times for medication or appointments associated with the trial. She will have an infusion every 21 days (approximately) after all the initial appointments are completed.

Through all of this Desiree has been one heck of a fighter. She has been in some fairly significant pain and there have been several sleepless nights. I am asking for your prayers over all aspects of this next journey as we are back and forth to Houston several times.

Please pray for God’s healing power and that it will shine though and bring Glory to his name during this process. Please pray for each infusion to kill the tumor and all signs of cancer. Please pray for strength, clarity and peace. Please pray for our kids, Joel & Lauren.

We cannot thank you enough for all the messages, calls, meals, and more.!! We are thankful for the amazing support system around us and love you all!

Thank you for your generosity!!