Help Paden with medical bills during chemo

During the Thanksgiving holiday, my son Paden went to ER with unknown health complications. After a month of being in and out of the hospital & several scans/tests later he was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. He started his first treatment for chemo after New Years and will be doing 6 months worth of treatment.

Paden is 20 yrs young, born & raised in west Texas & the oldest of 4 younger siblings. He is newly married to his high school sweetheart & beautiful bride Trista.

From the time he was little Paden has always been a caring and loving child. Always putting his family first before his own needs.

Paden was an exceptional athlete and student in school playing football and running track. He broke several track records during his high school years along with attending honors classes. If one of his siblings had an event, there was never any doubt that Paden would be there to support and cheer them on. He also spent a lot of his time learning how to rebuild cars and welding. He has always had the mindset of learning how to fix something & doing it yourself.

Paden started working when he was in high school doing various tasks such as taking summer jobs on a farm and working for his grandfathers business. After high school Paden went straight to work in the oilfield putting in many hours to provide for his family.

Paden started having lower back issues that we all thought was just tight muscles and the workload. He started getting deep tissue release treatments that seemed to help briefly. Shortly after that he was having bladder complications that led him to the urgent care clinic on November 20th. He was released and told to go see a urologist after the holidays because they couldn’t determine what was wrong. However they stated his spleen was enlarged. The next morning Paden called me and asked if he should get a second opinion due to he felt something was wrong and just wasn’t “feeling right”. I encouraged him to go to the ER in Odessa. After he got off work his wife took him to the ER where they ran an MRI. At 1 a.m. the doctor woke Paden up & reviewed with him the results of the MRI which showed his 5th lumbar vertebrae to be completely “eaten away” and he “might have cancer”. What a shock to see and hear as a young & what seemed to be very healthy adult. Paden was both shocked & left speechless. The doctor urged Paden to go to a bigger hospital immediately. After he was discharged Paden & his wife drove from Odessa to UT Southwestern in Dallas where we all met with him in the ER. They admitted him & started running several tests and scans. They placed him on a 2 day isolation during Thanksgiving to rule out certain infectious diseases. During this time they took a biopsy of his deteriorating spine to help diagnose. Oncology, infectious disease & neuro/spinal teams were put on Padens case to determine what was going on. For the next few weeks Paden spent several days in and out of the hospital. Along with the spinal biopsy, he had a bone marrow aspiration, several scans, echocardiogram, MRI’s and a PET scan which revealed multiple lesions on multiple organs and different areas of bone mass. He also had the cervical lymph node chain in the neck biopsied which confirmed and led to diagnosis of Stage 4 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

Paden will complete 6 rounds of chemo. Each round is 2 treatments per month utilizing 3 chemo medications. He started his first cycle after the New Years holiday. Neuro doctors are watching his spine closely to make sure it doesn’t collapse in itself during this time.

Paden is a private person & isn’t one to ask for help & doesn’t want to be a burden to anybody. Paden went from working full time to now having to temporarily move close to Dallas to complete chemo & be close to family & doctors.

I am asking for help on behalf of my son to provide some financial & mental relief in donations to help pay his bills. Because at the end of the day cancer has no mercy & the last thing a young adult needs to worry about is how their bills will be paid while they are completing chemo. Myself, Paden & family are greatly appreciative to all who can donate & help.