Help Dan's Fight Against Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer

Our Family is devasted.... My husband, Dan was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer that has spread to multiple lymph nodes (chest, abdomen, neck, collar bone, 7th rib, l-2 region, spine, and a few smaller spots) on September 25, 2024. His treatments will require him to be off for a duration of time and I'm not sure if he will be able to return to work. He does receive short-term through his work but it's only 40% percent of his wages which isn't much when taxes are taken out. Dan will have to keep up with his insurance premiums and union dues through work while he is off and doing treatments, so our income is minimal along with keeping up on our bills, gas & food, and anything our two girls may need along with future medical bills (which I know will be pouring in). Please consider a donation to help cover Dan's outstanding medical expenses, insurance premiums to keep his insurance, out-of-work union dues, bills, gas, and food to allow his family to continue living their lives as normally as possible. Anything helps

Dan's Story shared by Jamie:

On September 10, 2024 Dan was experiencing some mild aches in his right side... we went to St. Elizabeth's where they did a CT and it showed he had a possible gallstone caught in his bile duct. The hospital did not have a surgeon that could perform that type of surgery needed so they transferred him to Missouri Baptist. One Sept 11, they did a ERCP on him ... the Dr. told me he did not find a gallstone but Dan had a stricture in his bile duct and a stent was put in... he also said that he seen a large mass on the pancreatic head that was concerning and that it was inflamed around the bile duct and pancreatic area so they put him on antibiotics. They said is bile duct was backing everything up because of the stricture and another day or two would have resulted in Sepsis. They told us they wanted to do a EUC on Thursday to get a better view of the Pancreas mass. September 12, 2024 they did a EUC and took and biopsy of the mass. The Dr. told me that he did not like the looks of the mass and was going to treat it as if he had Pancreatic Cancer until the biopsy came back otherwise. They said the biopsy would take 4-5 working days for results. On Friday September 13, 2024 they had discharged him to go home. That was a very long weekend waiting for the results. Monday night September 16, 2024 we received a call from the Dr. that it was Pancreatic cancer and they wanted a PET SCAN done . On Sept 23rd they did a PET Scan to see how for it progressed. On Sept 24th we got another call from the Dr. saying it was in the lymph nodes also and we needed to contact someone for treatments. Luckily, we were able to get in the next day at Siteman. September 25, 2024 we went for a first Consult at Siteman. The Dr. there who will be Dan's Dr through it all preceded to tell us it was Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer and it has spread to multiple lymph nodes and that Whipple surgery will not fix things because the cancer has progressed too much. He told us that basically the doing Chemo will only buy us time with Dan and hopefully Chemo would shrink the tumor but the outcome is not good. Our family is hoping for a miracle.

Anyone who knows Dan knows he is a wonderful father and a great husband a big kid a heart. Our family was brought to our knees when we heard the word Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer and life expectancy for this is 1 yr to 1 1/2 and Chemo will only buy time. He has faced this head on and is concerned about his family and children. We have faith that his doctors have healing hands and chemo will shrink or cure the cancer. Medicine and treatments have come a long way. So please consider donating to help us out anything will help us for the next several months to year. Thanks