Hello! This is the new channel for accepting donations for D. Foy's ongoing needs. The original fundraiser, which tells his whole story, is here: https://gofund.me/f46da2b74

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UPDATE 4/25/26

Dear all of you,

First, again: we send you heartfelt thanks–those who have donated, those who have shared, and those who have simply just read and acknowledged what’s been happening with D. Even giving attention to someone else’s hardship is not always easy, we know.

Here’s something that Matt wrote that really hit me: “In March 2020, the world shut down. Most of us eventually returned to our lives. My friend D. Foy never did.” It's so true: because of his compromised immune system and other physical fragilities, D. is living with the kind of constant isolation and high stakes that we all experienced during the worst days of the pandemic

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We said that in the next update, we would get into some nitty-gritty details about what we think is going on with D’s headache, and next treatment steps.

In 2019, he had a second surgery on his neck—his first was in 2015. This one was supposed to be a disc replacement in his cervical spine. During the surgery, a vertebra crumbled, and the surgeon had to improvise by putting in a spacer—not to help support vertebrae as is usual, but to totally replace the crumbled bone. Now we know that the bone was that fragile because D. was already suffering from full-blown multiple myeloma. During this surgery, there was also unexpected and excessive bleeding that made it hard for the surgeon to execute this emergency strategic switch. Instead of going home the next day, as planned, D. wound up in the ICU and had an unexpected hospital stay. After that, he had terrible headaches on and off. And his neck never felt the same. The vertebrae around the spacer continued to get weaker as his bone marrow cancer progressed, undiagnosed.

Medical consensus is that the cumulative stress on his spine finally reached critical mass last March, when his current headache blossomed and never left. The headache is not a migraine, nor a medication overuse headache, nor related to jaw tension. He’s followed protocols for all of these with no change at all. The only treatment that has helped a bit, temporarily (other than his daily pain meds, which dull the sensation) is steroid injections in his cervical spine.

The next step is radio frequency nerve ablation (RFA). This is targeted nerve damage to stop the pain signals from the nerve to the brain.

THANKS TO YOUR SUPPORT, between our previous post and now, D. has secured an appointment for his first RFA procedure. It will happen over two days next week, April 29th and 30th. We’re really hopeful that this will work. The wild card–if it works–is how many times he’ll have to get this procedure to fully eliminate his headache. Needless to say, even dropping to level 3 pain from his current headache would be an immediate relief. (His birthday is April 27th, and a lessening of his pain would be an amazing birthday present.) We’ve met one person whose headaches were completely cured after six RFA treatments over a couple of years. So, for D. this could be quick or it could take some time. After RFA, there’s often a period of worsening pain before it gets better. We won’t know right away. We will update you soon after the procedure.

I’ll also write again soon with more details about how you are already helping, and more about what the assistance will be used for.

Finally: we really understand—and empathize—if you can’t pitch in materially right now. We know how that is. If you can share the link to this fundraiser, especially with a few words of your own, that would be a gift, too.

Gratefully,

Nelly (and the team)

4/19/26

Greetings, friends, family, and supporters of D. Foy.

We have debated doing this for many months. And it was really hard for D. to agree to it. After all, we promised we would end this GoFundMe campaign. It’s been closed to donations for years.

You have all already helped so much. Your support got D. from the shock of being diagnosed with late-stage bone marrow cancer through his chemo treatments and stem cell transplant, and then as well through a very difficult year of recovery. And you made it possible for Nelly to be there for him. Thanks to you and his doctors, he was beginning to get back on his feet.

So: it’s really hard to tell you that D. has not been doing well for a while. In spite of our optimism, he never bounced back from many years of living with undiagnosed bone marrow cancer, nor from the effects of the stem cell transplant.

What we hadn’t learned at the beginning was that even in the best case scenario, most people who reach the late stages of Multiple Myeloma never get back to “normal.” Most patients that we’ve met, in fact, suffer from lifelong pain, fatigue, and fragility. At this point, years of oral chemotherapy and the still-ongoing chemo infusions that keep his cancer at bay have wreaked havoc on his immune system, which was already damaged by the illness. He’s had pneumonia multiple times. (He’s sick in bed as we write this.) Small wounds don’t heal and become infected. A couple of these local infections have spread frighteningly quickly. He’s had two more stroke events (TIA’s). He has chronic kidney stones. He will need orthopedic surgeries. This is all directly related to his being a Multiple Myeloma patient.

The many large lesions and holes throughout his skeleton are a permanent fact of life.

Why This Moment?

The reason we’re moved to reopen this space now is that for over a year, D. has suffered from a crushing headache, 24/7. Friends, we’re not talking about a series of headaches—we’re talking about one single headache for 392 days. He goes to sleep in pain and wakes up in pain. He describes it as intense pressure on the inside of his skull, the feeling that his head will explode. Loud noises are crippling and can send him to bed for days. (For the grunge nostalgists among you, the one upside is that he now has awesomely long hair—haircuts cause the headache to spike.)

So, on top of his monthly chemo days, he’s spent much of the last year receiving a range of procedures at three different facilities, including the Mayo Clinic—from two rounds of spinal steroid injections, four rounds of medical Botox, two occipital nerve blocks, and trigger point injections, to a spinal tap and Emgality injections. He has also been prescribed a ridiculously long list of medications.

While none of the interventions have stopped the pain, they have ruled out potential causes. Through this process of elimination, his doctors now suspect that a compound of disc deterioration and bone spurs, and myeloma lesions and holes throughout his cervical spine and skull have increasingly inflamed the nerves that send pain signals from the spine to the brain.

This knowledge means there is hope.

There’s a gameplan for next treatment steps. We’ll tell you about it in the next (shorter!) post.

Despite everything, D. has remained committed to being self-sufficient. Amazingly, he has continued to work when he can, as a freelance editor and writing coach. But at this moment, his ability is limited.

Matt, Matt’s family—and Nelly, of course, always—have been helping and supporting D. in every way we can.

But we humbly ask you to join in helping him again.

Here’s what you will be helping with right now:

-Medical expenses–providers, treatments, equipment, and medicines not covered by insurance; copays for the appointments that are covered; transportation to and from medical appointments.

-Basic living expenses, from the everyday to the unexpected.

-Creditors–unfortunately, he has had to rely on credit cards to cover medical and living expenses. He has no immediate way of paying the bills.

It’s been a heartbreaking time for we who love D. The pressures, limitations, and necessary isolation caused by his illness have refracted into his closest relationships and have changed the shape of his family.

And we know this is a difficult time for so many of you. The whole world is in rough shape.

Still, if you were able to help our beloved D. Foy, his–and our–gratitude would know no bounds. Anything you can contribute will be appreciated, deeply.

The aim: create a bridge for D. until his headache abates, and he regains his footing. We are setting a new 12K goal. When he stabilizes, we will close the fundraiser again. D. is insistent that this campaign be as brief as possible. Hopefully this is one of very few updates. We just want to get D. to the point where his pain is gone–or at least manageable enough–to get back to work.

Thank you so much—

Nelly (partner/longtime sweetheart)

Matt (might-as-well-be-D’s-brother)

P.S. If D. were writing this, he’d say he’s okay with things. He’s been meditating a lot. He feels a kind of peace. Believe it or not, he even has a sense of humor.

P.P.S. Nelly’s material situation is the same as before: lucky to be a longtime faculty member at Sarah Lawrence College, Nelly still just has year-to-year contracts and no retirement fund. We are so grateful to the whole SLC community for its support. Nelly is also fortunate, right now, to have freelance work–but it is on a month-to-month basis.