This is my brothers cancer story. I don’t really know what to say except him and his new wife are really going to need some help to stay afloat, financially, during this battle. From what I understand, their bills were already going to be tight, but they were making it. Now with his battle, and I do mean battle, ends are not going to meet. This is the details of what he has gone through and what he’s going to endure. There is no way he’s going to be able to work. Please donate if you can. Or even share this so maybe someone else can help. Thank you so much.

We have a cancer update. It’s a lot so bare with me and if you read this whole thing, thank you.

The official diagnosis is Tonsil Cancer that is HPV+. It’s a tough cancer to treat but it is treatable. His type is the better of the two tonsil cancers apparently. Something like 80%+ of people have HPV and shouldn’t feel exposed or ashamed. We hope to spread more awareness of this once not so common type of cancer through this process so I will share more information about that soon.

So last Wednesday Orville had his PET scan… the cancer is no where else in the body besides the neck and throat! Thank you Lord! This was my prayer from the beginning!

Orville will be doing chemo and radiation simultaneously. It is going to be an extremely rough treatment, especially since it’s targeting his throat/neck but the team is hopeful that this will clear all of the cancer and that surgery won’t be necessary later.

Last Thursday we met the Radiation Oncologist and an RN who is our go to person during this process. The Radiation Oncologist said he will be doing daily radiation, M-F, for 7 weeks along side the chemotherapy which is once every 3 weeks. The chemo part will be done outpatient (thank goodness) which isn’t often the case. The day of treatment is an all day thing plus a few hours the day before and after for IV fluids and monitoring. The daily radiation part is only about 5-10 minutes of actual radiation but the set up around it makes it about a 30 minute appointment daily. Plus other meetings with both oncologists, the dietitian and anyone else on the team weekly or whatever.

We don’t have an official start date yet as they are waiting on 2 things to be done first but he should be starting around the first week of July probably. The two things they’re waiting on… one is the fitting/simulation of the face cage that Orville will have to wear for radiation treatment. He has that appointment on June 30th as of now.

The second thing, and one of the most heavy things for us is getting a feeding tube placed in his stomach. This was a tough decision that was not taken lightly but due to the location of the radiation, Orville will not be able to swallow food or even water easily after the first few weeks of treatment. We don’t want him to be starving or dehydrated while fighting this because that would make this fight that much harder, more miserable and even dangerous. The Dr gave us two current examples with patients of his and said we are definitely making a wise decision to get the tube ahead of time. He goes in June 27th to get the tube placed and then we will learn how to use it and all of that the next day with the dietician. Thankfully I have prior experience with G-tube feedings due to my line of work so it will be a refresher course for me and I should feel confident using it.

All of this means Orville will be out of work for the entirety of this process once the tube is placed due to his job being physically demanding and there is no way he will feel well enough to work not to mention the daily appointments etc. We are quite stressed about all the financial parts of this (already crazy) but we know God will provide for us and we will make it.

If you made it through reading all of this, thank you for caring enough. We continue to ask for your prayers and support through this. We never imagined starting our lives together like this but you know, it’s not our plans we live by. Thankfully we know we are surrounded by an amazing God who did know about this and is by our side. And we have amazing people surrounding us so we aren’t doing this alone. ❤️