Help Richard Nowell Fight Liver Disease

My name is Caroline Jessup and I am from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. My family was always close growing up, but I was even more fortunate than most because I got to go to school where my uncle was a teacher. While that may not sound special to most, and even terrible to some, it was absolutely one of the highlights of my time in high school. Every time I walked by his room, I got to stop in and see him smile at me, check out his outrageous outfit of the day, make a comment about him being bald, and go in to get the best hug ever.

While Richard Nowell is not technically my family by blood, he is one of the most compassionate, generous, HILARIOUS, and deserving people I have ever met. He grew up in Tuscaloosa and graduated from the University of Alabama before he began to teach in the Tuscaloosa City School system for almost 30 years. During his time teaching at Northridge High School, he taught a variety of art classes, announced basketball games, and coached the girl’s golf team, even though he doesn’t golf himself. They won the State Championship. He used his own time to write grants so he could host art camps in the summer and used the grants to make it possible for anyone who wanted to attend to be able to. He contributed an unbelievable amount of time, effort, and love throughout his teaching career and was generally just a constant smiling face in a place where there aren’t always enough.

In February of 2024, we learned that my Uncle Rick had kidney cancer and would need to have his right kidney removed. Just a few weeks later, doctors were able to successfully remove his offensive right kidney, and we were able to breathe a large sigh of relief. Things started looking up from there until we found out that there was fluid buildup in his abdomen. After a frustrating amount of tests, scans, blood work, and time spent at the doctor, we found out that he has advanced non-alcoholic liver cirrhosis.

Cirrhosis causes fluid to build up in his abdomen rapidly. He’s had large volume paracentesis (fluid drainage) every two weeks since being diagnosed, but even those are no longer helping him feel much better at all. Throughout everything, he has maintained a positive attitude and kept everyone around him calm, but we are still waiting on a prognosis. In October, he will go to UAB for testing to see if he is a candidate for a liver transplant. Regardless of that, the medical bills are adding up and we realized we are no longer able to do this on our own.

Any funds donated will be used for medical expenses not covered by insurance, in addition to helping alleviate the stress of my aunt having to consistently take unpaid time off of work to help care for him and go to appointments.

While we are still waiting to hear more about the possibility of a transplant and what all that will entail, we are asking for thoughts, prayers, and any donation possible to help get our family through this. Medications, treatments, and time off of work add up and we are only at the beginning of this fight. Please please please consider helping in any way you can. Richard has had such a positive impact on Northridge High School and the Tuscaloosa community, and I cannot imagine a future without him around to sing terrible birthday songs, wear a choir robe whenever he feels like it even though he is not in a choir, and make every family gathering hilarious.

When all of this started, he told us that all he wanted was to make it to his youngest son’s high school graduation in May. As of right now, we aren’t sure if that will be possible. Any and all donations will be directly used to help make that possible. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for any help that you might be able to offer.