Larry’s Cancer Fight
Donation protected
Larry has 2 grown children and 6 beautiful grandchildren, ranging in age from 13 years to just 3 months.
He is always the one that you call if you need help. He was never sick. Never really ever even got colds. He does have high blood pressure, so he does see the doctor every 6 months for routine bloodwork and prescription maintenance. Doctor always said he was healthy.
Mid-September hurricane Irma was headed our way. We needed to evacuate. So we packed up as much as we could in the truck and I took the dogs and hid out at our son’s home til it was safe to come home. With all that moving of boxes, Larry had tweaked his lower back. We had planned a vacation that we saved for 2+ years for and as soon as the airport opened again we headed out. But his back was really starting to hurt a lot. We called for an appointment for the day after we returned. Doctor thought it was muscular. A few more days pass and he heads to urgent care. Again, they think its muscular. Two weeks pass and no relief so we head to the ER on 10.11.17. They were busy and diagnosed him as having sciatica. The next morning we were back at the ER with Larry literally screaming in pain…barely able to walk. We insisted on additional testing and they took him for a CT…..and our world changed forever.
They came back stating compression fracture of the L4 caused by a lytic lesion. Its cancer. Those words haunt me. Days pass slowly with additional, multiple MRI’s and CT’s. In just a few short days he saw an ortho surgeon and an oncologist. It was determined that his lower spine was very unstable and he needed surgery and soon. But first, the oncologist sees that the root of the problem is actually his bladder.
Somehow, even with perfect blood test results bi-annually, Larry has stage 4 metastatic bladder cancer. He immediately gets in for a bladder resection and the news get worse. It is T2, hyper-invasive. The PET has come back showing his liver, lungs, spine, ribs, kidney, ureters, and tail bone, and multiple lymph nodes are all involved.
He just underwent a 4.5 hr surgery to fix his lumber spine so that he could walk again.
He starts chemo on 11.6.17. The oncologist is as optimistic as possible but at the same time she is keeping it real. The prognosis is grim but the plan is to be super aggressive with high dose chemo and radiation. Probable cystectomy as well.
Even though he has worked for the same company for 34 years, short term disability is all the income we will have IF his paperwork ever gets approved. His company is small and does not offer anything long term. Right now we are praying that it all goes thru soon because we are in jeopardy of losing his insurance…and then what???? I have only worked about 30 hours in the last 4 weeks due to caring for Larry and taking him to all of his appointments…sometimes 3 in the same day.
We never expected that we would ever have to ask for help but life has a way of throwing curve balls. Thanks in advance to any and all who help us out.
We plan to use the funds to pay the medical bills that are quickly piling up. We are also hoping to raise funds to cover the cost of living since Larry has not worked in a month and household bills are accumulating too.
He is always the one that you call if you need help. He was never sick. Never really ever even got colds. He does have high blood pressure, so he does see the doctor every 6 months for routine bloodwork and prescription maintenance. Doctor always said he was healthy.
Mid-September hurricane Irma was headed our way. We needed to evacuate. So we packed up as much as we could in the truck and I took the dogs and hid out at our son’s home til it was safe to come home. With all that moving of boxes, Larry had tweaked his lower back. We had planned a vacation that we saved for 2+ years for and as soon as the airport opened again we headed out. But his back was really starting to hurt a lot. We called for an appointment for the day after we returned. Doctor thought it was muscular. A few more days pass and he heads to urgent care. Again, they think its muscular. Two weeks pass and no relief so we head to the ER on 10.11.17. They were busy and diagnosed him as having sciatica. The next morning we were back at the ER with Larry literally screaming in pain…barely able to walk. We insisted on additional testing and they took him for a CT…..and our world changed forever.
They came back stating compression fracture of the L4 caused by a lytic lesion. Its cancer. Those words haunt me. Days pass slowly with additional, multiple MRI’s and CT’s. In just a few short days he saw an ortho surgeon and an oncologist. It was determined that his lower spine was very unstable and he needed surgery and soon. But first, the oncologist sees that the root of the problem is actually his bladder.
Somehow, even with perfect blood test results bi-annually, Larry has stage 4 metastatic bladder cancer. He immediately gets in for a bladder resection and the news get worse. It is T2, hyper-invasive. The PET has come back showing his liver, lungs, spine, ribs, kidney, ureters, and tail bone, and multiple lymph nodes are all involved.
He just underwent a 4.5 hr surgery to fix his lumber spine so that he could walk again.
He starts chemo on 11.6.17. The oncologist is as optimistic as possible but at the same time she is keeping it real. The prognosis is grim but the plan is to be super aggressive with high dose chemo and radiation. Probable cystectomy as well.
Even though he has worked for the same company for 34 years, short term disability is all the income we will have IF his paperwork ever gets approved. His company is small and does not offer anything long term. Right now we are praying that it all goes thru soon because we are in jeopardy of losing his insurance…and then what???? I have only worked about 30 hours in the last 4 weeks due to caring for Larry and taking him to all of his appointments…sometimes 3 in the same day.
We never expected that we would ever have to ask for help but life has a way of throwing curve balls. Thanks in advance to any and all who help us out.
We plan to use the funds to pay the medical bills that are quickly piling up. We are also hoping to raise funds to cover the cost of living since Larry has not worked in a month and household bills are accumulating too.
Organizer
Elicia Willis
Organizer
Hudson, FL
