Help Daniel's Family Through Brain Cancer Battle

Hi, I'm Daniel, and trust me, I REALLY hate to be asking, but my family needs your help. First, a bit about me and then why I need your help. I'm 41 years old, just had my 20th anniversary in August (with my wonderful high school sweetheart), and am a proud father of five great kids ranging from 4 to 17 years old. That youngest one is a great guy, but he sure was a surprise. For work, I'm an electrician with IBEW Local Union 124.

Now about why I feel the need to ask for help despite hating every bone in my body for doing it. In March 2022, I had the first and last three seizures of my life in one night. One at home, one in the ambulance, and one at the hospital. This led to emergency brain surgery the next day and a diagnosis of glioblastoma multiforme. GBM is one of the most aggressive and deadly cancers out there (it's what killed John McCain, Beau Biden, Ted Kennedy, and many others). In fact, I'm already a little over a year past my expiration date. While treatable, GBM is incurable. I went through the standard surgery, radiation, more than double the chemo, and wore a medical device called Optune for two years (the extent of its testing).

Everything was stable until the end of June 2024 when a new tumor appeared on a routine MRI. Unfortunately, while GBM has a standard of care for diagnosis, there is no standard of care for recurrence. My neuro-oncologist got me in to see the team he trained with at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.

Since mid-September, I have had two brain surgeries at Mayo. One was a biopsy to confirm eligibility for a clinical trial, and one was a full open surgery to remove the tumor (and a chunk of questionable temporal lobe). You can see about half the incision of that second surgery in the picture I attached to this page. That second surgery was October 9th.

As you might imagine, brain surgery isn't cheap. I can and will apply for aid from the hospital and a charity I was told about. The clinical trial is going to cost an amount (in travel, lost wages, and co-insurance) that I could probably eat without too much difficulty. The real problem for us is the lost wages during my recovery period.

All told, I will be out of work due to the two surgeries for ten weeks. That's a gross loss of approximately $20k. I do have short-term disability, but it's only $300 a week, gross. I've already sold off investments I've made for rainy days, but they turned into being only for sprinkling days. I'm honestly starting to worry about feeding my kids and keeping a roof over our heads.

A $20k drop in gross earnings would be hard for anyone. For a family of 7, where that represents basically all of the earnings of the non-primary earner, it's devastating.

I don't know what else to tell you. I'm not asking for money for hobbies (skydiving being my main hobby). I'm not asking because I need help with the large and still accumulating medical bills, because I think the hospital and charity routes will take care of most of that. I'm not trying to get money for home improvement (although the work on a house is never done and we are in the middle of a couple of projects). I'm just trying to cover the lost wages during my recovery period so that I can take care of my wife and children.

Please consider a donation, no matter the amount. It will be put to good use and will be appreciated by my entire family more than you can know.