Help my Dad Battle Stage 4 Cancer

Hi Everyone, my family is in a really tough spot right now and could use support if you can afford to spare anything at it will be greatly appreciated beyond words.

My Dad, Jim Bucur, is no ordinary Dad. From computers to cars to houses to anything really - he knows how to fix it. Not only that, but if you can think it, he can probably build it!

He has a fantastic creative mind (that I am so proud to have inherited!), and having recently retired after covid, he began revisiting his love of woodworking and started building his creations in his home workshop to offer at our small family business in Connecticut (you all know us at New Insights Boutique, in Sandy Hook Village!).

Jim is a lover of the outdoors, beach vacations, and of course, his family. He loves my Mom so much, and they’ve worked together now almost 30 years taking care of my sister Jamie - who struggles with developmental disability Pachygyria, and accompanying Epilepsy.

My Dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 Renal Cell Carcinoma this past May.

Just 5 months ago he was hiking with me, then literally a week later he fell through a stair and fractured his spine. They did scans and found something on his kidney - A biopsy revealed that he has stage 4 with metastasis almost everywhere… excluding his head thank goodness… and those are why his spine fractured, his bones are so brittle.

We started immunotherapy Optivo right away, and he needed a rod through put through his right femur to keep it from breaking (thank goodness - because it did eventually fracture).

His shoulder is so full of mets he cant move his left arm much anymore - and his regular orthopedic surgeon says theres nothing he can do.

He started coughing up blood clots about 2 months ago - we did spot radiation for that and it seems to have stopped for now. We also did 20 more days of spot treatments to his spine, shoulder, pelvis and femur.

Quickly degrading from walking to walker to wheelchair, about 5 weeks ago is when he suddenly stopped being able to get up at all. Ortho took scans and says he can still be weight bearing - but the pain is now indescribable. He began to suffer from SEVERE, unrelenting neuropathic pain that shoots down his legs.

So now, 5 months after our hike, my Dad is a bend bound skeleton. He’s lost as much weight as I think he even can, his muscles are gone. The cherry on top is that his essential tremors, which he’s always had, have gotten worse with this condition. It’s hard for him to even hold anything without it shaking right out of his hand.

In September he was in the hospital for pain management, then out to a rehab, where they said they didn’t feel comfortable working with him because of his level of pain. At the rehab is when we started to notice his neuropathy “twitching”. And now as of a little over a week ago we are back in hospital.

For pain he was on Dilaudad, Fentanyl, methocarbamol, Dexamethazone, and tylenol.

In our current stay at the hospital We’ve determined that fentanyl, believe it or not, wasn’t really working much, and are now switching to Methadone.

Right now it seems like it is starting to work better. They have him on a drip of dilaudad and He’s also started gabapentin. But my Dad cannot move, aside from his forearms in bed, without these crazy pain spasms.

I got a recommendation from a private RCC Facebook group to see Dr. Braun at Yale, which I am so thankful for. We spoke to him at the beginning of this, he and our primary oncologist at Danbury Praxair Center both had high hopes for Optivo. The other day we had virtual appointments with both Braun and my Dad’s primary oncologist.

Believe it or not, here’s where we are now:

My Dad’s primary oncologist at Danbury Praxair Center recommended we continue with Optivo despite current conditions, he said we COULD add something else at this point but he’s comfortable just continuing with Optivo.

Dr Braun says the opposite! He showed us imaging of my Dad’s lungs and even I could see there is much more NEW growth in the lungs. He says we should think about stopping Optivo and switching to Cabo. He’s very concerned about my Dad’s current condition and says he doesn’t qualify for clinical trials in this state either. He said it may be hard to bounce back from this…

Dr. Brauns office sent a referral to Dr. Lee 2 weeks ago. He’s a specialty oncological orthopedic surgeon (i think i said that right…). He asked for a pelvis cat scan so we can talk about maybe doing some minor surgeries to the pelvis for pain. He went away for two weeks but i have our next appt scheduled for Oct 15th.

My Dad is my Hero. He is the only person I know who gets me 100% - because I’m proud to say that I’m just like him! For his birthday (Oct 31st, he will be 64 this year), he said he wants to go fishing with me, but my heart is breaking because I just can’t imagine how we will be able to…

My family isn’t so good at asking for help, but we’ve reached a point where we really need any support we can get through this - for those who can afford to, we would be beyond grateful for anything you can give. Dad’s medical bills are stacking up, theres so much that isn't being covered by insurance. My poor Mom doesn’t know what to do or if we’ll be able to keep our family business going at this point. This is just beyond a nightmare - it’s hard to believe this is really happening. Thank you in advance to those who read this far and are donating. I can’t thank you enough.

Sincerely, Samantha B.