Help Brandon kick cancer in the nuts
Hi everyone,
I am Brandon's wife and caretaker, Chelsea. Brandon has been suffering from stage 3C metastatic testicular cancer since at least July 2023. Brandon's cancer spread from his testicle to his lungs, liver, spleen, brain, kidney and a muscle on his back shoulder. To date, Brandon has had: right orchiectomy, 4 rounds of VIP chemo, 3 cyber knife radiation treatments, 2 rounds of high dose chemo with autologous stem cell transplant and oral etopicide and there is more treatment to come to fully cure him. This will likely include more IV chemo, immunotherapy, surgery, radiation, or a combination of them all.
Brandon has also survived several infections including a root canal infection, COVID, sepsis and pneumonia. He is the strongest man I know.
Brandon became physically disabled from his high dose chemo regimen he took in February and March 2024. This is the highest dose a human body can take of chemotherapy and left him with major side effects. This has caused him severe weakness in his body and he can only walk short distances with a walker. With assistance, he can walk upstairs. He also has severe neuropathy in both his hands and feet so completing simple tasks are very difficult for him. We also discovered he has a drop foot on his right foot, so he has a special foot brace in his shoe. Along with major changes in his appetite, Brandon has lost over 60 lbs since he first got diagnosed with cancer. Finally, Brandon also has severe hearing loss. Hearing aids haven't been a good option for him, so we are using things like closed captions when we watch TV and a transcribe app for conversations. Brandon's side effects are starting to slowly get better, 6 months after the high dose chemo treatments, but he is still heavily effected by these ailments. I'm hoping over time they will continue to improve, but as we don't know his future treatment plans, we will have to see.
Over the last year, we have been paying for our medical bills, out of pocket insurance expenses and other household bills while Brandon has been unable to work consistently due to treatment.
Today, we are asking for assistance from our friends, family and others because we have hit a point that is making it difficult to continue tapping into our dwindling savings to make ends meet. Brandon has gone through hurdle after hurdle and is continuing to stay strong despite every setback.
Please read below to hear more about Brandon's timeline of his cancer journey.
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May 2023- Brandon noticed a growth in his nipple. He got an ultrasound and it turned out to be gynecomastia. Brandon was told not to scare himself and look up the causes for this, as there are many, including cancer but was told "not to worry about it".
July 2023- Brandon noticed an enlargement in one of his testicles that began to grow by the day. He met with his PCP and he told him that it could be testicular cancer but was AGAIN told not to worry about it because he's young and there's a low mortality rate. They ordered bloodwork and an ultrasound. The ultrasound determined that his right testicle had a tumor growth.
August 21, 2023- two days before Brandon was due to have his testicle removed, the doctors ordered a CT scan of his abdomen and pelvis to determine if the cancer has metastasized. This was when we first found out that Brandon's cancer had spread to his lungs, liver, spleen and kidneys. The plan was for Brandon to start chemotherapy sometime in September.
August 23, 2023- Brandon has the surgery to remove his right testicle. At the time of his surgery, Brandon had no breathing difficulties. We decided for Brandon to put in a leave of absence at work for at least a week to recover from the surgery.
August 30, 2023- Brandon is admitted to the ER one week after his testicle surgery. He was complaining to me about shortness of breath and it started to get worse. I took him to the ER at 5am that morning. His oxygen at the ER was dropping to below 90%, and they put him on oxygen and decided to start him on chemo that same day. At that time, his tumor marker called HCG was over 355,000 (a normal male this should be 0). They ordered a chest x-ray and discovered that Brandon had a lot of fluid in his left lung from a large pleural effusion. While receiving his first dose of 4 rounds of VIP Chemo (Cisplatin, Etoposide, Ifosfamide), they performed a thoracenteses to drain the fluid in his left lung. They found over 3L of cancerous fluid in his lungs at that time.
November 2023- Brandon receives his first radiation dose of cyber knife on his brain in between chemo treatments. Brandon finished the 4 rounds of VIP chemo and is able to enjoy Thanksgiving with his family and friends. Brandon also returned back to work at that time, as we thought our nightmare was over.
December 2023- A post chemo brain and body scan determined that the cancer was beginning to shrink, but we were told Brandon will likely need a high dose chemo regimen to continue treatment. The plan at the time was to discuss this in the new year. They also noted one spot on his brain scan that seemed to light up with the contrast. The radiologist said that we will monitor in a few weeks.
January 2nd, 2024- Brandon came to me and said that he was having issues grabbing things with his left hand and that he felt like something was wrong. I thought he was having signs of a stroke and I immediately called his doctor and left a message. In the middle of reading about what to do in a stroke emergency, while Brandon's doctor was calling me back, Brandon screams, "it's happening, call 911!" and started convulsing on the couch. I went into panic mode and immediately called paramedics. I realized then that it was a seizure he was having, not a stroke. His seizure was over in minutes and Brandon woke up confused. The paramedics arrived shortly after and confirmed he had a seizure. He was taken over to Wilmington Hospital right after. Despite being given anti-seizure medication, he had another seizure while he was there. From an updated brain scan, they determined that this spot that lit up on his brain scan in December was growing in size and was a new tumor, and caused him to have these seizures.
January 2024, a couple weeks later- Brandon has his second dose of cyber knife radiation to the brain on the new spot that caused him to have seizures.
February 2024- Brandon is prepared to receive high dose chemo with autologous stem cell transplant. First, they harvested his stem cells. He started his first of two rounds of high dose chemo in mid February. He received the chemo for a few days and was given back his stem cells to help boost his dwindling blood counts. Brandon's white blood cells after the high dose chemo were next to nothing and he spent about a month recovering in the hospital.
March 2024- Brandon receives his second dose of high dose chemo and spends another month in the hospital. He is discharged on Easter, 2024. From the high dose chemo, Brandon became completely debilitated and at that time was unable to walk more than short distances. We started getting at home physical therapy to help boost his strength, but unfortunately he became bed-bound at that time and became too weak to walk.
May 2024- Brandon gets a follow up brain and body scans to see his progress. While there was significant progress elsewhere, there were still several nodes in his lungs. His oncologist said that he will need to undergo surgery to remove these nodes, when Brandon is stronger, and in the meantime was given an oral chemotherapy pill to help maintain the cancer.
Memorial Day weekend- late May 2024- Brandon agreed to attend a metal festival in Baltimore called Maryland Death Fest despite being wheelchair bound. We had a lovely time, but we both ended up catching COVID from being around so many people.
June 7th 2024- Brandon's COVID is not getting better. The whole week leading up to this day, he was becoming delirious, talking in his sleep and saying things that did not make sense. I later found out this was because of infection. On June 7th, his at home nurse ran his vitals and showed low blood pressure, a high resting heart rate and lower oxygen levels. I spoke with his doctors and they agreed we need to bring him to the ER immediately. This is the day before Brandon's birthday and he fought me on going to the ER with the paramedics, but we finally convinced him.
A couple hours after waiting in the ER, Brandon's lung collapsed and he needed to be put on oxygen support. It was determined that Brandon got pneumonia and sepsis from his COVID infection.
He spent several days in the hospital recovering. He agreed with me at that time that he needs to be put into a physical therapy rehab. Unfortunately, every nearby rehab facility denied his case until he was finally admitted to a facility far south of us in Milford, Delaware.
Late June, early July 2024- Brandon has a very successful 10 day stay at the rehab facility where he was able to walk again and showed increase in strength.
July 3rd, 2024- Brandon is discharged from the rehab facility and after being away for almost a month, he could finally come home. Throughout the next 2 months, Brandon continued to get stronger and is now able to climb stairs to sleep in the bed with me and take showers. He is doing much better physically, and his vital signs are all great, despite his tumor marker continuing to rise. His oxygen levels are at 99 or 100 even with the growing lung mets.
Late August 2024- Brandon returned to work part-time.. Brandon had more follow-up body and brain scans. At Chelsea's request, they performed a PET scan as well. The scans determined that there was growth in his lung mets, growth on his spleen tumor, and slight growths on his brain, including a new spot that wasn't there before. They also found a new tumor on his back right shoulder rotator muscle, but this may be benign. Brandon is not in pain in this area. He is set to do another round of cyber knife radiation sometime in September 2024 for the new spot on the brain.
Because there are so many nodes in his lungs, the doctor informed us that surgery on the lungs to remove all of the tumors would not be feasible at this time. He also mentioned that while radiation on the lungs may help shrink the active tumors in the lungs, it would not prevent the spread of the disease, which is why he would prefer surgery. Now that we see the cancer is spreading, the doctor's priority is to maintain the cancer before moving forward with surgery.
Brandon's doctor thinks that the oral chemo medication is helping, but not maintaining the cancer as much as he had hoped it would. At this time, his doctor is looking into alternative chemotherapy or immunotherapy medications to try to maintain the cancer and hopefully shrink the amount and sizes of the nodes in his lungs.
Brandon's doctor is going to research alternative medications and help us decide what would be the best regimen. We have an appointment with him next week to see what he thinks will be Brandon's best shot.
I'm currently holding onto hope because despite everything, Brandon seems to be healthy and getting better every day. Brandon and I are asking for help because his cancer treatments are getting expensive, even with health insurance. There are a variety of bills that insurance will not cover.
I am working full-time and supporting us for now, but it is becoming more difficult every single month to keep our heads afloat.
Thank you for considering donating to Brandon. We couldn't do this without the love surrounding us. I am forever grateful for the generosity from everyone reading this post.
Your donation will go directly to paying off debts related to Brandon's cancer treatment.
If you prefer to help us by other means here is a link to our Meal Train and Amazon Wishlist
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/2S23ULM9LNMD9?ref_=wl_share
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