John’s Bile Duct Cancer and Liver Transplant Fight

Hi everyone, my name is Sanja Lamb. Never in a million years did I think I would be saying these words and asking for help, but my 32 year old husband, John Lamb, has been diagnosed with bile duct cancer (cholangiocarcinoma) on February 13th, 2024. This is an extremely rare and aggressive cancer, with less than 20,000 people being diagnosed annually. John is the MOST loving, kind, caring, special man who deserves the world, and I so badly wish I could trade places with him in a heartbeat.

My apologies for the long winded explanation, however I know curiosity will stem from this and I would rather not explain everything multiple times to everyone individually.

This all came on suddenly in the beginning of November 2023 with random vomiting, which prompted him to get blood work done. His lab results showed he was essentially in liver failure. 2 ER visits later, he was finally admitted to the hospital due to itchy skin and jaundice, among other symptoms. The doctors at Kaiser ruled it out as being an autoimmune disease called Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (liver disease affecting the bile ducts).

John has been admitted to the hospital 5 times now (I’m currently writing this from our hospital room), and has had endless scans / blood work / endoscopy procedures / biopsies. The initial diagnosis was over Thanksgiving 2023, and was that he had PSC and would eventually need a liver transplant. He received a biliary stent to help drain his bile which was helping for a little. Doctors were worried it could be cancer as well, but due to how rare cholangiocarcenoma is and how it targets adults 60 years and older, they were doubtful of this.

His liver biopsy was done on January 24th, with results coming back on January 30th. It showed his liver was at about a stage 3 with fibrosis scarring. After receiving the news, were on track with pre transplant procedures and were looking forward to going to Mayo Clinic in Arizona soon to receive his new liver. Part of these procedures would be numerous scans to rule out cancer.

On February 7th, John did a CT scan (which showed small lesions but no tumor masses) and on February 9th, he underwent an ultrasound and endoscopy to collect bile duct lesion and lymph node biopsies.

John’s abdominal pain that he regularly experienced since November grew worse and worse over that weekend, and we finally went back to the ER on February 11th to be admitted to the hospital. On February 13th, we received the news that his biopsy results from February 9th came back positive for cholangiocarcinoma in his bile ducts, and his regional lymph node also tested positive. His recent CAT scan done on February 12th also shows a small mass now on his liver.

His liver transplant is out of the question at the moment. John will begin his first round of chemo on February 15th. We need to focus on slowing these cancerous growths down first, then stopping them, and finally shrinking them to nothing. Once his cancer is at least localized to his liver, we can focus on getting that liver transplant again.

We are very private people who don’t like to ask for help, but all of this took a giant shift in the wrong direction and we are graciously turning to our community for assistance, especially since John has been out of work since November and I am no longer working as of February 11th. All funds will be used for out of pocket medical expenses as we search for second opinions outside of our network, and a liver transplant. We are grateful for any donation no matter how small, as any little bit helps right now.

We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your donations, shares, and good energy.

With all our gratitude,

The Lambs