Vincent and Heather Swann

Hi, my name is Ashley Corbett. I’m making this account for my brother Vincent Swann Jr. For those of you who know my brother can testify he is a GREAT person and would give or do anything for a complete stranger if they needed something and he could help. November of 2022 he developed pain in his right shoulder. He made an appointment to see the doctor but before he could make it to the doctor the pain became worse and sent him to the hospital on a Saturday.

In the hospital they did scans and saw he had what they thought at the time could have been a pleural effusion (fluid in the pleural spacing around the lung) so they placed a chest tube and tried to get him to a facility with a cardio thoracic surgeon. We were transferred that night to Saint Francis Hospital and were told that what they thought was fluid was actually a 20 cm mass. He was admitted and taken for a biopsy that Monday. He was only working with one lung and already had asthma and COPD. Watching him struggle to breath and being in pain was so horrible. After the biopsy and several days they were able to get his pain under control; however, the biopsy was so poorly differentiated it came back inconclusive, so it was sent off to the Mayo Clinic. Which at this time this large mass was continuing to grow and was reported to be 22 cm at his biopsy. He had a previous scan in Feb. 2022 for his check up on a bowel perforation he had the year before and nothing was there on that scan at that time indicating the mass. So it was growing and growing fast. It took two weeks to get results—a lot of stress, tears and an episode of his HR jumping into the 280s where he looked like he was the most scared for his life. My parents, his wife and myself were there for this and it was hard for everyone involved but mostly him. He was given medication which broke his heart rate being so high and was transferred to a more critical unit. That day they reached out and finally got results. This whole time we knew that Saint Francis hospital couldn’t provide the extensive surgery he needed and we would have to transfer to a larger institute but they wanted biopsy results before they would accept him.

The biopsy came back— the now 26 cm mass was identified as Sclerosing Rhabdomyosarcoma. A very rare cancer—1% of all cancers and is usually seen in children. There is not much research on this cancer because of it being so rare and the funding is just not available. We were sent that night to UAB hospital where we were admitted to a doctor who had taken care of patients with sarcomas. We had a game plan- 47 weeks of Chemo, 30 days of proton radiation starting week 13 and then hopeful that it would shrink enough to remove it.

Chemo treatment consisted of chemo weekly at Alexander City but every third week he goes to UAB and gets a combo of three drugs. The first big treatment sent us to the hospital with our heart rate and later required him to have blood transfusions- where we found out he has developed a blood disease which causes his blood to clot if the body gets below body temperature. So that makes surgery a little questionable now. His Chemo was cut back 20%. He has a lot of shortness of breath the day of and feels like death the first few days but he pulls through and for sure one of the strongest people I know..

6 weeks into chemo the tumor shrunk 1 cm in diameter. Chemo has continued. He had his molding and scan for radiation this past week and he was told he was not going to be able to have radiation locally and would have to stay at UAB and have it done there because of the type of radiation and how it can cause increased risk for a heat attack and damage to his other lung. He was just told now on February 10th, 2023 that his scan showed no shrinkage and he will have to go to UAB for an hour long radiation to hit the core of the cancer on the 21st of February before starting his 30 day radiation on Feb28th/March 1st.

Vincent has 5 kids- ages 6, 8, 12, 13, and 15.. He had to stop working the day he went into the hospital and his wife has been the one working. He’s waiting on disability but that can take up to 8 months even with a Lawyer.. He will be staying away, in Birmingham for 6 weeks come March 1st and his wife will have to stay back and work to pay the bills and their expenses there as well. At this time he will receive high doses of radiation five days a week. I was hoping to make this account to help raise money, so his wife could stay with him as much as she can while he is staying in Birmingham.

He’s so proud and wouldn’t ever ask for help and I know his response is going to be “Why did you do that? There are other people who need more help than me.“ Any donation to make this possible is extremely appreciated and most importantly if you could say a prayer for him and his family!

Cash App: veswann88

Venmo: @brad-corbett-10

Paypal: acorbett21