John’s Cancer Treatment Fund
Donation protected
Hello, my name is John Schrier. I am 32 years old & I live in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota. I work for an awesome company called A&B Business Solutions that is based out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I am their Rapid City Warehouse Manager/Copier Set-up Tech. I spend a lot of time with my awesome Mother, Raydean Hoven, & my only sibling, Marie Schwartz, & her three kids, Weston, Mason, & Ben. I also have two beautiful Great Danes Bubba & Bella.
My current cancer journey started about the first week of August when I noticed some lumps on my testicle. The next day along with the new lumps came pain & like an idiot I decided to ignore these symptoms. Fast forward to August 31st, 2019. I woke up that morning & I knew something was Wrong because I could hardly walk. The pain of my right testicle had become so unbearable I could hardly walk. I decided, with significant threats from my mother, to go to Black Hills Urgent Care. While there I was given a stern talking to by the doctor, because I was stupid & had ignored the symptoms, & was told I needed an ultrasound. The doctor was nice enough to give me a shot for the pain so I could walk & I was off to their imaging lab for my emergency ultrasound. I got the ultrasound & I had gone to work to start loading up one of the work trucks because on that Monday the 2nd I was going to be driving to Sioux Falls for a week of training. Well then, the doctor called at about 3:30pm with news. The first words out of his mouth were “I have already called the ER at Regional & told them that you are on the way. So, stop what you are doing & get there now.”
The diagnosis was that I had severe Testicular Torsion & that since I had let this go on for three weeks the testicle was dead & needed to be removed. This happens when the testicle twits in the scrotum & cuts off the blood flow to the testicle. I got to the hospital ER at about 4pm & by 5:30pm I was in surgery to get my dead right testicle removed. The next week SUCKED. My scrotum had swollen up to the size of a softball & weighed about 15lbs. I could barley walk because of the size & weight of it. Then on Friday September 6th I received the news. My doctor had waited until the nursing staff had told him that my mother was there visiting & he came in to drop the “You have Cancer & we need to do another surgery ASAP” bomb on us. That night I had to get a CT scan to see if the cancer had spread outside of the scrotum, which it had. I went back into surgery on September 7th so they could cut out more things from my scrotum & groin.
The surgery went great & the swelling has gone down significantly, but it will still be months before my scrotum & groin are back to their original sizes. My doctor worked hard over the next week to get me into a testicular cancer specialist & on Thursday the 12th of September he told me that he had gotten me an appointment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota on Monday September the 16th! My doctor got me released from the hospital on the 12th & by Sunday the 15th I was headed to the Mayo Clinic with my mother & sister. We took our time and just had a fun time driving. We made it to the appointments on Monday & we got some pretty big news. This cancer is a very aggressive & rare form of testicular cancer, it has also spread to my lymph nodes in my chest & abdomen. The chemo treatments that the doctors determined that I need to do is very aggressive. They determined that I would need four rounds to start. The rounds are set-up like this: five days of inpatient chemo with two weeks off. Inpatient chemo means that I must be checked into the hospital for all five days of chemo. I was raddled by all of this.
That brings me to why I have started this go fund me. I will be missing a lot of work over the next six months & in that time I will have a significant amount of medical bills to pay for along with my regular bills. I’m not one to ask other people for help but this is one of those extra moments in life when you need to just ask for help. I have had such great support from my coworkers at A&B Business Solutions & my family since this has all started. I feel so blessed to know each and everyone of you.
Thank You so much for donating to help me through these tough times!
Sincerely,
John Schrier
My current cancer journey started about the first week of August when I noticed some lumps on my testicle. The next day along with the new lumps came pain & like an idiot I decided to ignore these symptoms. Fast forward to August 31st, 2019. I woke up that morning & I knew something was Wrong because I could hardly walk. The pain of my right testicle had become so unbearable I could hardly walk. I decided, with significant threats from my mother, to go to Black Hills Urgent Care. While there I was given a stern talking to by the doctor, because I was stupid & had ignored the symptoms, & was told I needed an ultrasound. The doctor was nice enough to give me a shot for the pain so I could walk & I was off to their imaging lab for my emergency ultrasound. I got the ultrasound & I had gone to work to start loading up one of the work trucks because on that Monday the 2nd I was going to be driving to Sioux Falls for a week of training. Well then, the doctor called at about 3:30pm with news. The first words out of his mouth were “I have already called the ER at Regional & told them that you are on the way. So, stop what you are doing & get there now.”
The diagnosis was that I had severe Testicular Torsion & that since I had let this go on for three weeks the testicle was dead & needed to be removed. This happens when the testicle twits in the scrotum & cuts off the blood flow to the testicle. I got to the hospital ER at about 4pm & by 5:30pm I was in surgery to get my dead right testicle removed. The next week SUCKED. My scrotum had swollen up to the size of a softball & weighed about 15lbs. I could barley walk because of the size & weight of it. Then on Friday September 6th I received the news. My doctor had waited until the nursing staff had told him that my mother was there visiting & he came in to drop the “You have Cancer & we need to do another surgery ASAP” bomb on us. That night I had to get a CT scan to see if the cancer had spread outside of the scrotum, which it had. I went back into surgery on September 7th so they could cut out more things from my scrotum & groin.
The surgery went great & the swelling has gone down significantly, but it will still be months before my scrotum & groin are back to their original sizes. My doctor worked hard over the next week to get me into a testicular cancer specialist & on Thursday the 12th of September he told me that he had gotten me an appointment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota on Monday September the 16th! My doctor got me released from the hospital on the 12th & by Sunday the 15th I was headed to the Mayo Clinic with my mother & sister. We took our time and just had a fun time driving. We made it to the appointments on Monday & we got some pretty big news. This cancer is a very aggressive & rare form of testicular cancer, it has also spread to my lymph nodes in my chest & abdomen. The chemo treatments that the doctors determined that I need to do is very aggressive. They determined that I would need four rounds to start. The rounds are set-up like this: five days of inpatient chemo with two weeks off. Inpatient chemo means that I must be checked into the hospital for all five days of chemo. I was raddled by all of this.
That brings me to why I have started this go fund me. I will be missing a lot of work over the next six months & in that time I will have a significant amount of medical bills to pay for along with my regular bills. I’m not one to ask other people for help but this is one of those extra moments in life when you need to just ask for help. I have had such great support from my coworkers at A&B Business Solutions & my family since this has all started. I feel so blessed to know each and everyone of you.
Thank You so much for donating to help me through these tough times!
Sincerely,
John Schrier
Fundraising team: Beat This! (2)
John Schrier
Organizer
Box Elder, SD
Raydean Hoven
Team member
Marie Schwartz
Team member
