We Have Raised the Full Amount For Histotripsy!

Thank You, Everyone, From the Bottom of our Hearts!  

WE ARE FOREVER GRATEFUL

We leave for Oroville hospital Friday the 23rd.  His procedure is the following morning!  

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  We are over the moon excited for this opportunity

JANUARY WILL BE ONE FOR THE HISTORY BOOKS!  

In a few weeks, James is scheduled for his second histotripsy procedure.  He has less than half the cancer he had in May when we did the first procedure .

This is phenomenal because he's only done three chemotherapy sessions in the past 18 months.  Not nearly enough to kill his cancer yet he went from 8 remaining lesions in May to only 5 lesions now.  The two largest are active.

What does this mean?  Two things-

1. Cholangio is hard to kill.  But yet James' immune system has clearly learned the DNA from May's procedure and has killed three small lesions itself.  This is the miraculous abscopal effect we hoped to achieve! This is what will cure James. 

    

2. Cholangio is aggressive.  His frail immune system hasn't had enough time to kill the two largest remaining lesions on its own and they are active, growing 1/10 of a cm in two months.

We are going in to kill the last of his cancer and his immune system will not only clean up the liver debris but get even stronger.  

We are aggressively restarting our fundraising efforts.  I know the economy is so hard right now.  We're eating rice and beans right alongside all of you.  

I'm asking a final plea.  One last push over the only hurdle left in our path.  

We've raised enough to purchase the plane tickets to California (thanks to your awesomeness) but are still short $4,600 to pay for the second and last histotripsy procedure that can cure James.  

WE ARE SO CLOSE....please can you pass this along to everyone you know and ask them to do the same.  We need 4,600 compassionate people give just $1 and our superhero gets to live a long life with his family.  

Our children are with him in the picture.   James wants to walk his daughter down the aisle.  He wants to go fishing with his son.  YOU can help us give them that moment. 

If you can't donate, we understand.  Please help us reach those in your social circle who might help us financially reach this goal.  We appreciate any help, gesture or kindness you can offer in any way. 

Thanks to ALL OF YOU who have prayed, supported, donated and loved us.  We are so grateful to have you in our lives and walking this journey with us! 

#TogetherWithJames

Dec 4th could not come soon enough - James could barely function from the sunken flap but - it's done!  And the results could not be more beautiful.  This implant is PERFECT!  

Two plastic surgeons worked beside neurosurgery for six hours and James has never looked so good.  His head and face look pre-stroke good.  Other than the obvious scars, you will never know he's had 10 brain surgeries.  We are so amazed and grateful for these surgeons' hard work and skill.

James is in a lot of discomfort but considering all of the work done, that is to be expected.  Over time, it will subside.

With this monumental hurdle completed, we turn our attention to the next.  Yesterday the PET scan revealed that James has five lesions present.  Two of them are in the upper lobe and they have grown.  The other three have slightly shrunk.  It's a mixed bag of news but the positive takeaway is that there are no new lesions and no other metastasis.   It is still contained within the liver which means it is still treatable with histotripsy.

Had we gone to California in August as planned, James would have missed a milestone moment.  Histosonics has upgraded their Edison machine again and the 3rd generation arm is even more capable of treating hard areas.  There are some who are getting lesions in their upper lobe successfully treated when just this summer, that was a far off dream IF they could hold on long enough.  

There are only two hospitals with this machine acquired in September and October and you guessed it, Dr. Burns is the radiologist working at both hospitals.   God is so good to give us this opportunity that we nearly missed.  Who ever thought we'd be so happy for an unplanned neurosurgery?

Today we spoke to Dr. Burns' office and James is scheduled for the second round of histotripsy on January 24th.  We are short $5k for this procedure plus plane tickets so anyone able to help, we sure would appreciate it.

More than anything, we need your prayers.  Pray with us for James to completely recover from this recent cranioplasty,  that there is no complication or infection,  that his body is strong enough to travel and go through histotripsy once more and that Dr. Burns will be able to reach the upper lobe and the remaining portion of the lesion near the pancreas.  

We are grateful to have options when on December 8, 2022 James had a Whipple procedure for this cancer.  It was supposed to buy him time; a 23% chance of surviving 5 years, at most.  7 months was the actual prognosis we got.  And here we are THREE YEARS later looking at the miraculous new technology that could possibly rid him of cancer once and for all.   

As much as we hate PET scans and talking about cancer,  the privilege to discuss treatment options feels like a big middle finger to this monster.  

And THAT, makes me smile, just a little bit.