Dear friends of TR. On behalf of his many friends from the heavy underground music community, I’ve set up this fundraiser to help TR and his family through a tough time. The message below was posted by TR back on May 10.
“Hello all, I received some bad news on April 14th. I had been having some stomach pain, upper abdomen, a dull ache nothing I couldn't deal with. I noticed that I started to get fatigued faster than normal, which I attributed to getting older, busy with work, family and playing music. My step mother went to the ER in January or February. She said her poop was almost white. I didn't realize that a problem and that your poop color can tell you that something might be wrong. I noticed that mine had started to be a light beige color, so I started to monitor it. Through Google, the symptoms I was having, fatigue, light colored poop, I started to lose a little weight and pain in my upper abdomen, pointed to a problem with my gallbladder or gall stones. So my wife and a couple of friends kept telling me to go to the doctor. I thought that I would have to get my gallbladder removed and I wasn't really wanting to deal with that. Finally my wife made me go. On April 14th, I went to the ER and told them my symptoms and that I thought it was my gallbladder. They did blood work, an ultrasound and a CT scan, then told me that I have a mass on my pancreas and it was blocking the bile duct from my liver. That's the reason my poop was light colored and causing the dull ache. Without that I would never have known. On April 17th I did an endoscopy biopsy and they installed a stent in my bile duct to open it. The biopsy of the tumor came back April 21st as positive for cancer, but the lymph nodes were negative. I went to meet the oncologist and surgeon on April 27th the surgeon saw a spot in my abdomen and wanted to check it out to see if the cancer had spread. I had a laparoscopic diagnostic surgery to check that spot and a chemo port installed on May 4th. I was scheduled to start chemo May 13th. My father, mother in law and some family friends had been trying to get me an appointment at Duke for a second opinion. On the 5th Duke called and I was able to get an appointment for the 7th. I met with the doctor and did another CT scan, he said that the cancer hasn't gone anywhere else and that he can do surgery to remove the tumor. As of now we are waiting to see if the make up of the tumor has a certain protein and if it does then I will do a trial 3 week treatment, then surgery, a 6 week recovery and then chemo for 6 months. If it doesn't have the protein then surgery on May 18th, 6 week recovery and then 6 months of chemo. Bottom line I am extremely fortunate to have caught this early. I also have seen a lot God moments in the last 3 weeks, too many to list . I have also found out that I have a lot of support from family and friends ❤️ I wanted to tell my story to possibly help other people, because my mentality before this was " I don't want to know" which is dumb. The sooner you catch health issues the better. I have a long road ahead, so if you want to send some prayers and positive vibrations my way I will take them. ❤️”
On May 19 TR had surgery and is now home recovering ahead of his planned chemo. Through all of this the medical bills are mounting. We’re sharing this fundraiser with the amazing music community that he and his band Freedom Hawk have been a huge part of for 20 years now to help rally around TR and his family during a trying and stressful time.
Please do what you can to help, any small donation or even just sharing with your networks helps so much.
If you’re in the mid Atlantic region there is a benefit show on June 27 in Frederick MD. Will share details on that for anyone who wants to come out to support TR and listen to some good music.
Thank you!