Join David's Fight Against Bladder Cancer

My name is David Blaszczyk.

I was medically retired 5 years ago at the age of 60. I had a good job in industrial manufacturing (Arconic/Alcoa) for over 10 years, and the last thing I wanted to do was stop working. A herniated disk in my back and my neck having to be fused caused my early retirement. After several hospital stays and years of recovery, I thought my life was returning to normal. Then in April 2024, one morning I went to the bathroom for my morning pee, and well, it was far from normal. I peed all blood, so I went to my primary care physician. He ordered a CT scan, and it came back that I passed a kidney stone. Ok, no biggie. Well, a week later, I peed all blood again, but this time it came with 3 blood clots, and I immediately went to the emergency room. Another CT was done, and they found a mass on my left ureter (the tube that connects your kidney to your bladder). It wasn't allowing my kidney to drain. Upon doing a biopsy, they discovered it was cancer, stage 4 bladder cancer, to be exact, urothelial carcinoma. Beginning of June 2024, I started immunotherapy at MercyOne Genesis Cancer Care Hospital in Davenport, Iowa. It wasn't working, so next they put me on another immunotherapy with chemotherapy. This went on for about another month, another CT scan. It was working, and the tumor was shrinking so they could do surgery to remove it! They just kept me on treatment to shrink it more. A month went by and 3 more treatments. I started having a lot of pain, so I went to the emergency room. Another CT was done, and it was discovered the tumor grew 3 times the size it was a month ago. It was decided to do the surgery. The catch-22 was I had to wait 6 more weeks before they could get me in, and that was a rush; originally, it was gonna be 8 weeks! I finally got the robot surgery, and the surgeon told us he got everything he could, 98%. He removed the tumor, ureter, and a perfectly good kidney! There was a cancer root, so I did 6 rounds of radiation and another CT scan. Well, the cancer has spread to another tumor in the same area, a lot of lymph nodes, plus now the back of my liver. I’m receiving 2 different chemotherapy drugs now, and the side effects are horrible, to say the least. My wife and I did take a trip to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota in hopes of some new kind of treatment or to volunteer for any research or cancer trials for my type of cancer, but they had none going on. About a month ago, I received a phone call from my cancer doctor’s office. He strongly recommended I go to MD Anderson in Houston, Texas, for a trial for my cancer. Right now, there are only treatments and no cure for this dreadful disease. MD Anderson is the best in the nation for cancer, but there were several hoops to jump through. First, my health insurance needed to approve it because it's not in-network, which I finally got approved, yippie! Secondly, we have to pay for all travel and lodging. We would like to drive and will have to stay anywhere from 3 days to two weeks. Then once I'm there, I have to meet all of their other requirements for the treatments. Right now, my wife still works a manufacturing job, but because of me, she takes off work 1 or 2 days a week for my chemo, travel to doctors, and my overall care. She will need to take off all of this time as well. I've reached out to the American Cancer Society, and there are no funds for travel or lodging for what could be a way to extend my life and others with my cancer. My doctor told me that the risk of doing this trial is very high, but I want to help others and hope this will allow for better treatment.