Support Wyatt's Battle Against Aggressive Cancer

On November 1, 2023 we found out my 25 year old son, Wyatt has cancer. It started in his right cheek. He had thought he bit his cheek and it wasn’t healing, but he did seek medical attention and was not getting anywhere for several months. Finally, it was just getting worse and he found an oral surgeon that did a biopsy. By the time we found out what it was, it had already spread into much of the right side of his face, and down his neck in his lymph nodes. He had a PET scan, MRI, and multiple CT scans. The doctors agreed that our best shot was for him to have surgery at the Univ. of Miami. He had part of his upper and lower jaw, parotid, cheek, muscle, nerves, lymph nodes etc all removed. He had skin/artery removed from his left arm to recreate a new “cheek” and a skin graft added to his arm in its place. He recovered well from the surgery and underwent radiation/chemo for 6 weeks. Wyatt was doing well, getting back on his feet, and even started a new job. He had a pet scan at the end of June to show he was now “cancer free”. Except that he wasn’t. Wyatt woke up on July 2, 2024 with severe chest pain and trouble breathing. He went to the ER to find out he had pulmonary embolisms blocking a good part of his right lung. Later that day, we would hear from his medical oncologist to find out that he had cancer in his left posterior nasopharynx and spread through both of his lungs. Wyatt would later have biopsies to confirm this. He started on chemo/immunotherapy after seeing a specialist at Moffitt Cancer Center, but he had a bad reaction to the immunotherapy. After a second round of chemo, Wyatt’s cancer in his lungs greatly increased and he was hospitalized after not being able to breathe. He also found out he has a massive blood clot in his right shoulder after a power injector was used, which has caused excruciating pain ever since. He spent his 26th birthday in the ICU. Finally he was able to come home on 4L of oxygen. And he was started on a new combo of chemo. Wyatt has developed a mass in the left side of his neck now that is pushing into his throat and making it difficult to swallow and speak. He has reached out to his doctor to discuss the placement of a feeding (peg) tube. He has had a lot of pain and swelling so our prayers will be that this thing stops growing while we wait for chemo to have time to work and that Wyatt can find some relief from the pain.

We are looking into other treatment options that our insurance does not cover. Wyatt’s venmo is listed below. If you can share, we appreciate anything at this time. @wyattsallay (last 4 digits phone 1613)