If you know Allen (aka Savage), you likely know that he’s been fighting various manifestations of cancer since October 2022. At the same time, it’s equally as likely that you didn’t know, because he’s not the kind of person that tells everyone about hardships he’s facing.

He’s our Allen; he’s our Savage; he’s our guy: He’s the man who steps up when you need a helping hand or protector in your life (likely without ever asking him). He’s the one that will *literally* chase a bear if he and his people are threatened. He’s also the guy that has the random bolt or screw that only your great grandfather’s garage should have, and, unlike everyone else – he knows exactly where it is. He’s both the manliest of men as well as the overly-concerned grandmother, worried about you not having enough meat on your bones.

Unfortunately, our dude, our guy, our man-among-men, our Savage… our Allen, has stage four cancer. If you’re learning about this for the first time, I deeply apologize that you’re finding out about it in this way. Regardless, the fact remains that this month (June), Allen was diagnosed with an intensely metastatic, dangerous lytic bone lesion on his L4 vertebrae. The tumor is 2-1/2” x 2” x 3/4” in size. Translation: cancer has spread to his spine, into the bone. He found this out during a routine scan to check up on how the cancer in his lung was responding to his immunotherapy and chemotherapy medications.

Five months previous to this, the only cancer still present was in his lung.

One year before that, in January 2024, Allen had a seizure. Erin immediately took him to the emergency room. That’s when he found out that he had a brain tumor. And, not only did he have a brain tumor, he had cancer in his lung as well. He immediately had brain surgery to remove the tumor but also had to face the newfound lung cancer.

A year before that - to the day - in January 2023, Allen was having his kidney removed. Not only was that surgery on the same day as his brain surgery the following year, but it was also in the same hospital and in the very same operating room. And why was he having a kidney removed? Well, a few months before that, in October 2022, Allen noticed blood in his urine. Erin took him straight to the hospital and the doctors quickly determined that he had renal cell carcinoma. It’s an incredibly slow growing cancer by nature, so the doctors told him that it likely had been growing for nearly two decades unbeknownst to him. So, a few months later, not only did they remove one of his kidneys, they also removed a 7.8lb tumor. For context, 7.8lbs is higher than the average birth weight for children in America currently.

To have remission and recovery so frequently presented, only to have it yanked away over and over again, is a serious emotional hurdle to overcome, but add to that the fact that surgery for his renal cell carcinoma tumor and kidney removal operation took roughly five months to recover from. It was also nearly eight months after his brain surgery before he had regained full use of his left arm, finally allowing him to feel comfortable returning to work. These long recovery periods on their own have set Allen and Erin back extensively, but they barely scratch the surface.

In addition to Allen’s inability to work during those periods aside (compounded by extensive periods throughout this entire saga), the cost of meeting deductibles, the repeated copays for constant ER and doctor visits, medications, travel to appointments for specialists, etc, have put them in an incredibly rough spot. To add to it all, normal tasks that he could normally perform on their secluded property have become impossible to achieve on his own, and they’ve found themselves needing to rely on friends for help more and more often. Normally, it would be easy to lean on friends for that support almost exclusively, but with the Burning Man season ramping up, it’s proving more and more difficult.

This is beginning to result in needing to hire outside companies and contractors to mitigate situations that, at any other time in his life, Allen would be fully capable of repairing himself.

The financial hole in place from previous medical diagnosis, surgeries, treatment, and recovery, have already found this beautifully warm, inviting, and generous couple stands well over 40K. This hole is expanding at a rapid rate, at the same rate of his cancer, and will likely end up tremendously higher.