Josh's Fight With Multiple Myeloma

Hello, my brother Josh Granados was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma during the summer of 2022. A lower-back ache that had been bothering him for a few weeks turned out to be a nightmare that he has been fighting for two years now.

Leading up to that life-changing summer, Josh enjoyed spending time with his family. This included coaching his daughter’s soccer team, shuttling the kids to any of their events, watching DC United and 49ers games, and just being a great dad. He loved his job as a bank manager and those that worked with him loved him as well.

Since his diagnosis in 2022, Josh has been in and out of hospitals and has undergone several rounds of treatments and procedures. Please take some time to read more about Josh's fight with Myeloma under "Josh's Medical Timeline" below.

Even though the timeline may seem like a lot, we’ve hardly scratched the surface of the day-to-day toll this disease has taken on Josh physically, mentally, and financially. We can’t tell you the amount of times he has been poked and prodded for a biopsy or a line inserted in his body. The number of times he’s writhed in pain because of side effects or an infection. The hundreds of anxious waits for a test result or a call from the doctor: “would it be good news or bad news?” The number of moments he’s wondered why and how this happened to him. Not to mention the times he would come back from the hospital, barely being able to stand because of the side effects, to a bill and wondered how he was going to pay for it.

While Josh counts himself lucky enough to have insurance for his treatment, it isn’t free. When he stopped working in August 2022, he fortunately qualified for short-term disability. Although, he was eligible for medical coverage and some disability benefits, it usually entailed going through extensive paperwork and jumping through hoops to get approval for that coverage. Most of the time, Josh was dealing with this bureaucratic process while he was in the middle of chemo or other aggressive treatments. Obviously, that added additional stress to Josh's overall health and took its toll.

By the beginning of 2023, he had to apply for long-term disability. While this has helped continue to bring in some income, it is hardly his full income and the bills do not stop. Josh has sought out financial assistance via several avenues: the hospital, cancer foundations, family, friends, and payment extension requests. While Josh continues his fight from the hospital (soon rehab), the bills and other responsibilities keep piling on and the debt keeps growing. It will be some time before Josh gets to work again and his focus right now should be his recovery. The last thing he should be stressing about is how he will pay his medical insurance and/or his living expenses. That is why, after resisting for a long time, I have convinced Josh that creating a Go-Fund me page would be a good idea. If anyone knows Josh, he is very independent and does not like to ask for help. But, as I told him, he hasn’t gone through all of this adversity only for financial stress to cause him to not fully recover.

So, that is why I’m asking you on behalf of my brother Josh – if there is any way you can contribute to his Go-Fund me which would go towards paying down some of his medical bills and general debt, I will forever be grateful. I know times are tough financially for everyone, so asking for a financial contribution was not an easy decision but even a dollar would go a long way. All Josh wants is to go back to a normal life and the only way he can do that is if his sole focus is rehabbing and getting better. Thank you for taking the time to read Josh’s story and thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

Josh's Medical Timeline

2022:

• Diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma a plasma cell cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow. This type of cancer is typically rare in younger patients like Josh.

• Diagnosed with a tumor caused by the myeloma around his right hip area. This caused all sorts of complications that kept Josh in and out of hospitals. His right leg was swelling and caused him extreme pain.

• Due to all of the complications, he had to take short-term disability at work.

• He started radiation and chemo in October 2022 to reduce the tumor and multiple myeloma in his body. He was in the hospital for almost a month.

• Once he went home, right before Thanksgiving, he was dealing with the severe side-effects of chemo and radiation.

• In December 2022, just after Christmas, he was admitted to the University of Maryland Medical Center to start autologous stem cell transplant. He spent weeks in the hospital dealing with side-effects.

2023:

• Josh was released from the hospital after his stem cell transplant and things were looking positive.

• Between the end of January and February, Josh underwent additional radiation for the tumor.

• At this point, his leg was in a lot of pain and walking, driving, and other activities was extremely difficult.

• By early spring, Josh was given the news that based on his blood work and scans, it seemed that he was in remission.

• He began maintenance chemo which he had to go into an outpatient clinic a couple of times a week.

• Josh also saw doctors about his leg, at this point it was numb and he was having trouble walking. He was told that the tumor had caused severe damage to his sciatica nerve. There was no way of knowing how long it would take for his leg to become functional. He would have to start using a device to allow him to walk on that foot.

• Unfortunately, in early summer the medical team informed him that he had relapsed, the cancer was back.

• Over the course of the Fall, Josh’s medical team came up with a plan to start a new treatment called CAR-T cell therapy. This was his best shot at getting back to remission.

• In December, phase 1 of the treatment began by being admitted to UMMC and starting a heavy dose of chemo. This was meant to flush as much of the myeloma out of his body in preparation for CAR-T cell therapy. This was intense, and the side-effects were as bad as ever: infections, nausea, vomiting, and more. He spent a little over 3 weeks in the hospital and was released the day before Christmas.

2024:

• Around mid-to-late January, Josh underwent 3 days of lighter chemo and then had the CAR-T cells infused into his body. The wait for side-effects was on. CAR-T could cause neurological side-effects among other potentially severe side-effects. He had to stay close to the hospital for the first 5 days after the infusion. He would also have to go to the clinic daily to get bloodwork done. On Day 6, he was to be admitted under observation. If all went well, he would go home within the week.

• As if on cue, on Day 5, he began having fevers and severe chills. His blood platelets were also unstable, and he was requiring platelet and blood infusions almost daily. He was admitted to the hospital on day 5. He spent about a week and half there being treated for all of his side-effects.

• Around mid-February, about a week after being released from the hospital, Josh began feeling numbness on his face. He waited until his appointment the following day, he was admitted and diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy. The temporary paralysis of half of his face would be temporary but it affected his eating/drinking/speaking/eye movement among other things.

• During this hospital stay in February, he was diagnosed with an E-Coli infection, had continuous fevers, required platelets and blood, underwent a bone marrow biopsy, had a spinal tap, and had a fall walking back from the bathroom in his room. Unfortunately, the fall caused him to break his ankle on his other foot (the functioning foot). Now, he was bed-ridden for the time being. o A lot of these complications were due to his body being flooded with the CAR-T cells. This was a good thing because it seemed to be doing its job but it was causing a lot of issues.

• After the almost three and a half hospital stay between mid-February and March, Josh was released but required a wheel chair and other assistance to do anything.

• Around mid-to-late March, Josh was not feeling well. He was having severe shoulder pain, ankle pain from the break, and dealing with Bell’s Palsy. At this point he was going to the hospital every other day for platelets and blood transfusions. During this visit, the medical team admitted him to the hospital again. He underwent scans, blood work, and a bone marrow biopsy.

• On March 22, his oncology team and an emergency surgical team told him that while the scans showed no signs of multiple myeloma, there was a sign of infection in his mid-section that required surgery immediately. The scans were showing bubbles in the soft tissue that indicated necrosis of the tissue in that area. Having surgery was the only way to determine how bad the infection was and how much tissue to remove. This was a nightmare of a day, the medical team was honest with Josh and the family that he was a very high-risk patient for a major surgery like the one he needed. They emphasized that it he could possibly not make it out of the surgery because of his platelet issue, but if they didn’t do the surgery the infection would eventually take it’s toll. The decision was made that he would have the surgery and they would do everything they could to keep him safe in the operating room.

• After a few nerve-wracking hours, the surgeon spoke to the family: the air bubbles that showed up in the scans were just air. Once they opened him up, they didn’t find any sign of infection. Everyone, including the medical staff, was in disbelief about what they found...air. It truly was a miracle. Josh made it through the surgery just fine. They packed his incisions and waited to get the results of the cultures they had taken.

• By the following week, the cultures had come back positive for E-Coli but he was already on antibiotics to take care of that infection. He had a second surgery to stitch the incisions up.

• As he recovered from this major surgery, the orthopedic team x-rayed his leg to see how the ankle break was healing. Unfortunately, after five weeks, it didn’t seem like the bones were fusing back together enough. He would require surgery to get a screw put in his ankle.

• The week after he was stitched up from the first surgery, he was back in the OR for surgery on his ankle. This would hopefully help in getting him moving again, as he had been bedridden for almost 6 weeks at this point.

• Throughout this time, he was still fighting one infection or another. He was still dealing with his platelets fluctuating. As the medical team put it, his bone marrow was in hibernation and they really didn’t know when it would wake up. He would have to have platelets infused as much as necessary until it did.

• Now in mid-April, Josh is still in the hospital. Things have been improving weekly. They are now talking about sending him to rehab. Because he hasn’t walked in almost two months and he has a drop foot (from the tumor damage), a broken ankle, and recovering from major surgery – recovery will be long and slow.

Thank you again for taking the time to read about Josh's journey.