Help Matt Bowen fight his diagnosis of Cancer

For those who don’t know, Matt had been experiencing some mild upper-abdominal pain for around two months. The pain became so severe it began to affect his daily work/life activities.

On February 19th , Matt finally decided to go the ER for the abdominal pain where they performed numerous test from MRIs, CT Scans, Upper Gastrointestinal XRay Series and an ERCP (Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography). Once all of the tests were complete, it revealed he had a “crater like” stomach ulcer, his common bile duct is blocked, a GI bleed, a deflation in the duodenum (start of the intestine) and a large mass in the pancreatic head. During the ERCP, they took a biopsy of the mass in the pancreatic head and said they would follow up within 3 to 10 days with the pathology results. Matt remained hospitalized in Medical City Arlington until he was discharged on February 26th. He was home less than 24 hours before the sever pain sent him to the ER at Medical City Weatherford Monday, February 27th. After spending two nights at Medical City Weatherford, he was transported by ambulance to Medical City Fort Worth on Wednesday night (March 1st), because the GI Team in Weatherford was unable to accommodate his needs at that time. Upon Matt’s arrival at Medical City Fort Worth he was told he was going to be discharged and needed to follow up with the medical team who conducted the initial testing at Medical City Arlington. Matt was back at home around 10:30pm on March 2nd. He spent the entire next day at home with little to no issues. Early Saturday morning on March 4th, Matt had two occurrences where he passed out. This resulted in his Dad driving him back to Medical City Arlington since that is where he would be following up with the medical team. Upon arrival, Matt was rushed back immediately as his blood pressure had dropped to 75/42 and they began working on getting it stabilized. After more X-rays and blood work, the hospital informed him that there was not a GI team on call and he would be transported by ambulance to Medical City Fort Worth. Lab results were showing rapid blood loss due to the GI Bleed in his abdomen which led to him having three blood transfusions in two days.

Monday March 6th, we finally received the pathology results on the mass in the pancreatic head. Matt was diagnosed with Large B-Cell Lymphoma, which is a type of blood cancer.

Shortly after, Matt’s Oncology team came and spoke with us about his treatment plan. They sent him that afternoon for a MRI of his neck and chest area. The results showed no other spots of lymphoma. We are currently awaiting the results from the liver biopsy and the stage diagnosis from the bone marrow aspiration. He will soon have a chemo port placed for his 6 rounds of chemotherapy that will be spaced three weeks apart.

Matt has been hospitalized a total of 18 days already and this is only the beginning of his fight. Matt is young, he is strong, and he will overcome this.

If you know Matt, you know he never puts himself before anyone else. You call him, he’s there. With the uncertainty of when he will be able to return to work, I wanted to create this page for anyone who would like to help lessen the financial burden of the medical expenses to come. This will allow Matt to exert all of his energy towards kicking cancers ass! I understand times are hard for everyone right now, if you can’t donate please feel free to share.

Anything and everything is very much appreciated!