Gomez Family Fundraiser

     

     GLEN ROCK – The Glen Rock Police Department, in cooperation with the Glen Rock PBA, is proud to once again be participating in “No Shave November”, an annual fundraising and awareness effort during which participants from around the world, including many law enforcement agencies, have put down their razors to join the fight against cancer. This year’s mission is dedicated to raising funds to benefit a Glen Rock family impacted by cancer.

     Barbara Gomez and her husband Joseph Gomez have lived in Glen Rock for nine years.  She has been married to her husband Joseph for twenty-three years.  They have two children Anabel, 22 and James, 20 who are both in college.  Barbara went to urgent care this past September where she had an X-ray done and was told she had pneumonia.  She then started coughing up blood and was told to go to the emergency room for a CT scan.  There she was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer.  This came as a complete shock to her because she is a non-smoker.  Barbara then spent the next four days at Valley Hospital receiving tests where she was told she had a tumor in her right lung that measured 6.2x4 cm.  This tumor had already metastasized to the lining of her lung and in the lymph nodes at 7mm and 6mm.  It was also found in her liver at 21mm.  The week following that, she was also notified that she had a tumor in her right arm which she thought was from a slip and fall on the her deck back in June.

 
      Once the doctors saw the MRI results of her arm, it was imperative to have surgery right away to save the humerus bone that the cancer had been eating away at.  Last month in October, she went into Hackensack Meridian for surgery, but after opening it up they weren’t sure it was the same cancer, so they performed a biopsy of the bone.  After the biopsy was complete, they were able to determine it was the same cancer and performed surgery on it the following week.  They put a metal plate over the bone to help prevent it from breaking.  Barbara is now in need of radiation sessions at Memorial Sloan Kettering in Montvale, New Jersey to destroy the remaining cancer cells in her arm.  Barbara will continue all her other necessary treatments at Sloan Kettering as well.  It will be a battle, but a battle she is willing to fight and hopes that this non-small cell lung cancer chemo medication for the EGFR mutation cell will help her shrink the cancer into remission.

    Updates to follow as we hear more.