Hello, my name is Darcie Crandall and I am humbly asking for donations to help cover my husband Joe’s medical expenses due to his recent cancer diagnosis. Joe and I have been married for 20 years and have two awesome boys that are 14 and 8 years old.

June 1st of this year is when we had to take Joe to the ER and we were told that he had a mass on his right kidney. We were in shock; in fact, still to this day it is hard for me to say the “C” (Cancer) word when talking about him. The next day we saw the oncologist, and he confirmed that Joe does have kidney cancer, so he was set up for surgery to remove his kidney with the mass, lymph nodes next to the kidney, and adrenal gland. Joe was scared to death; he had never stayed the night in the hospital, let alone had any surgeries or medical issues. He didn’t even like taking cold medicine.

The weeks leading up to his surgery, we took care of things with his work and got him time off for when he was recovering from the surgery. But since he was going to be off for over a month to recover, we had to cover the medical insurance premiums, and we were also losing his overtime income.

He had the surgery on June 30th where they took his right kidney with the mass on it, his adrenal gland, and 3 lymph nodes. The doctor said that it looked like only one lymph node was showing cancer, meaning that since the other two didn’t, it hopefully didn’t spread to any other parts of his body. Being that the mass on his kidney was so big (11cm, covering his whole right kidney), he was still diagnosed with stage 3 kidney cancer, meaning that we are not out of the woods yet and he will have to continue with treatment.

We thought that the recovery was going to take him about 4 weeks, being that it was supposed to be a few small incisions for a laparoscopy surgery. But when he got out of surgery, he said that the pain was unbearable, and I can imagine because he has 5 small incisions and then one 7-inch incision. He stayed one night in the hospital, and because he was still in so much pain when we got home, he had to use one of my dad’s old walkers to get around for at least a week or so. Recovery was slow, and instead of 4 weeks off, he ended up having to take 6 weeks off. Which meant we didn’t have his full income for that time.

So many sleepless nights talking and crying about what the future holds while still having to keep a strong face for our two boys so that they can have some bit of normalcy. He will still have to go in twice a week every three weeks, once for a blood draw and doctor’s appointment, and then a couple of days later he will go to get his infusion.

He has already had his first infusion a couple of weeks ago, and he has had little side effects. But when something happens to him or he doesn’t feel well, that is the first thing we think is the reason for it. The doctor said that he may not have any side effects until he gets more infusions because they come on later. Which would make it harder for him to work full time, let alone work at all.

We have been financially struggling the whole time that he has been off due to him not having overtime hours and also having medical bills along with the insurance premium payment. Some might ask if we have asked for help, and yes, we have filled out financial aid assistance, and since Joe regularly makes okay money due to his overtime hours, we don’t qualify for assistance. Also, some might ask why I am not working. I am currently not working due to my own medical issues. I am a type 1 diabetic and have been since I was 9 years old, and I had to have major surgery on one of my eyes to prevent me from going blind, and instead, the surgery made me go blind in that eye. So now I am unable to work and drive, among other things. I am working with my eye doctor to have shots in my eye every couple of weeks to clear up my eye, and those alone are over $500 each, but I am hoping in the near future that I will gain my eyesight back either with continued shots or having another surgery, which takes almost a month or two to recover. My parents currently live with us and are already helping with a lot of regular monthly costs, and they are on a fixed income and cannot help anymore than they are.

This has been such a tough time for our whole family. We cry and pray together, and our youngest son makes Joe cards every week that say kidney cancer sucks and he is sorry that he has cancer. Our oldest son is a teenager, so he doesn’t really know what to say but tries to make light of it and makes jokes, like “Dad, can we still go hunting?” I think that I am still in shock; like I said, just writing or saying the “C” (Cancer) word is hard for me. I honestly thought that it would be me that would have the major health issues because I have type 1 diabetes, but then for Joe to get kidney cancer devastates me. I have never seen my husband be so scared and have so much anxiety in my life. He has always been the one person that makes me feel safe with his hugs and comforts me, and now I am the one trying to comfort him. We all know that this will be a long and hard journey, but we will do this as a family, and Joe won’t be alone in this battle. I am asking for donations to help us with his medical bills and continued medical expenses, because right now he is the sole provider for our family of four, and we are struggling. I don’t want him to feel like a burden or feel like he isn’t helping support our family because of this awful diagnosis; we just unfortunately need some extra help right now.

I also want to thank everyone and show our gratitude for the people that have reached out to either me or Joe with supportive loving words. Also, thank everyone in advance for any donations made. I will keep everyone updated on his progress and this journey we are all on together.

Thank you, Darcie Crandall