Gougie Boy Needs Our Help!

Never the story and never the request anyone wants to share - But here we are.

If you're blessed to know Darren Gouge aka Gougie Boy, you know what an incredible man he is. Darren was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive cancer known as Cholangiocarcinoma (Cancer of the Bile Ducts) a little over a year ago. He underwent a tough surgery removing part of his liver, the bile duct, and gallbladder. Darren's chemo treatment over the past year seemed to have worked at clearing his body of the cancer. Until Now! Early last week, Darren was given the news the cancer is back and has spread to some lymph nodes around his stomach and heart...Stage 4.

NEVER the news anyone wants to hear!

But here we are.

As you know, Darren is the life of the party, the guy who can build anything, the grill master, a fishing guru, wood working craftsman, the first one to show up to help you take care of whatever you need, and so much more! He is a husband to a remarkable woman, Candice, a dad to two amazing men, Slade and Trent, a Father-in-Love to his daughter's-in-love, Stefani and Erin, Paw Paw to his 1-year-old grandson and another who just made his entrance into the world this past weekend. He is the guy who never stops putting his family and friends first.

Now here we are - Needing Darren to be put First!

Thankfully, most people don't understand the financial burden cancer treatment puts on families. The stress alone from the medical bills, living expenses, loss of work, and all the unknown expenses that creep up without you even seeing them coming; is more than anyone should ever have to endure while fighting for their life. Well, Darren and Candice are in the middle of it right now - and it's about to get worse!

Darren is set to start six months of hardcore chemo next week. Six months of fighting for his life, fighting for more time with his family and fighting to kick this cancers ass!

We are a family of fixers. We can't fix this. We can't wish this away hard enough.

What we can do is ask for help. It's the only thing we know to do right now, and it's the most humbling request to be made from all of us!

So, here we are!

Darren has a very hard road ahead of him right now. We want him to be able to focus on his treatment, not the crushing financial stress this causes. His insurance will only cover a portion of treatment and the day to day bills don't stop because you're sick as so many know. He has already missed so much work over this past year which has resulted in losing much of his annual income.

We are asking for monetary donations to go towards expenses that are currently adding up and will only get worse. Any amount is a blessing and a gift that will be truly appreciated. Please know, we understand most people are in a financial struggle right now. If you can only give $5 - that's $5 more than what we have right now and we will be grateful!

Asking for help is hard - Fighting for your life is harder! If you're in a financial position to help, we would be humbled and grateful to you for donating to Darren's GoFundMe. If you're not able to help out financially, we truly understand and ask for your prayers! Prayers for Darren and his family, prayers for his treatment, prayers for healing - Prayers for All The Things! In addition, we ask you to consider sharing this with your friends/family/coworkers/companies across your spheres.

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for taking the time to read this plea and for any help you can give.

If you have any questions about the GoFundMe donation options, please reach out to April Pulliam or DeLana Greenhill.

Love and Gratitude to all who read this!