Help Rhett and his family fight cancer for the third time

OUR GOAL HAS BEEN MET. The Dupke family and I want to thank all donors for their kindness and generosity. Health and happiness to you and yours.

Hello and thank you for your time and interest in joining me to help the Dupke Family. My name is Rebecca Sarzo. I first met the Dupke Family in 2022 and Jenn and Mike Dupke are the parents of Rhett, aged 9 and his 4 year old sister Delilah.

Rhett is currently going through his third battle with Neuroblastoma cancer.

Rhett was first diagnosed in February 2019 at age 3 and a half when his parents took him to the doctor for a limp. Testing revealed that he had stage 4 Neuroblastoma, a cancer of the neural tissue with a tumor on left adrenal gland and disease that had metastasized in his bone marrow causing him to limp. He went through 5 cycles of aggressive chemo, two bone marrow transplants, radiation and immunotherapy before his scans showed No Evidence of Disease (NED) in June 2020.

Rhett remained NED until February 2022 when new lesions were discovered on his quarterly MBG scan. This battle was shorter as Rhett underwent more radiation, immunology and chemo before reaching NED again in October 2022.

Unfortunately, Rhett relapsed again this summer in June 2024 when his quarterly scan showed a lesion in his skull. Rhett is currently being treated at Kaiser in Hollywood with doctors from CHLA and Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York advising on his care. They feel that treatment during Rhett's last bout with cancer ended too early and as such they've recommended 12 sessions of radiation, a year of chemo and immunotherapy treatments spaced out every 3 to 4 weeks.

Each of Rhett's chemo/immunotherapy cycle requires 5 days n the hospital. In his prior battles, Jenn and Mike were able to stay overnight in Rhett's hospital room and could even keep Delilah with them during the second bout since she was nursing. Now that she is older that accommodation is no longer available, and the local Ronald McDonald House has not had availability due to the high number of families in need of their services. This has resulted in the need for hotels close to the hospital so Jenn and Mike can take turns spending the night with Rhett as he undergoes care and this added expense in addition to food and gas is quickly adding up. All the donations to GoFundMe will go toward these costs as Rhett completes his anticipated year of treatment and if there are any funds left over when he finally reaches remission, it will be donated to a local cancer charity to benefit children going through the same hardships.

Thank you again for your time and interest,

Rebecca Sarzo