This is the most important pitch I’ve ever written.
Hi friends, my family and I have some unfortunate news to share with you, and we really need your help.
Shocking Diagnosis: From COVID to Cancer.
Those of you who talk to me regularly know I’ve been dealing with the lingering effects of a long COVID infection that’s affected my health in a number of ways. What I haven’t shared publicly until now is that during the diagnostic process, CT images revealed a mass in my lung that turned out to be cancerous, and a subsequent biopsy revealed that the cancer had spread into adjacent lymph nodes. At my relatively young age, this was the last thing we expected.
As you might imagine, this diagnosis has shocked my family and me to the core. It’s only been a couple of years since I gained custody of my teenage boys who now live with me, my partner Alicia, and her teenage son Chiron. Things had just started to feel settled and comfortable with all of us under one roof.
After being separated from my boys for years due to very unnecessary custody issues, the idea of leaving them so soon has been nearly impossible for any of us to contemplate. There are so many things we’ve planned to do together and many milestones yet to experience. Now they have to worry about me, and worry about losing me to this disease. They’ve already been through so much.
I’m Fighting for My Life: No Quarter, No Surrender.
I’ve decided that as long as I have a chance of surviving this disease, I’m going to fight like hell to stay alive. So far that fight has included conventional chemotherapy and immunotherapy that successfully pushed the cancer out of my lymph nodes and back into the mass in my left lung. Unfortunately, while the immunotherapy was highly effective against my cancer, it also damaged my liver, meaning I’m no longer able to continue using it out of concern that my liver will fail. Conventional chemotherapy, while helpful when administered with the immunotherapy drugs, has only been marginally effective against my cancer. In a nutshell, my conventional treatment options are limited.
Consequently, I’ve had to look outside the box for alternative treatment options, and after much research and consideration, we found an approach that has shown real-world results against my type of cancer.
EuroMed Foundation: An Integrated, Effective Treatment Approach
In August I relocated to Phoenix, Arizona for three months to receive daily treatment at the EuroMed Foundation, a clinic dedicated to innovative, integrated oncology. After much research and investigation, we chose this treatment center because we spoke with and met several patients who’ve recovered from the same type of cancer I’m battling – many of whom had much worse potential outcomes than I do and are now healed and thriving many years later.
EuroMed’s approach to cancer treatment primarily uses a unique, twice-weekly chemotherapy regimen that lowers patients’ blood sugar via high doses of insulin, thereby ensuring that cancer cells are as “hungry” as possible (cancer cells have 21x the glucose receptors of healthy cells). Once blood sugar levels are sufficiently depressed, a cocktail with reduced doses of several chemotherapy drugs combined with glucose is given via IV, with the net effect of delivering concentrated cell-killing power almost exclusively to the glucose-potentiated cancer cells. In addition, EuroMed’s treatment plans are designed to strengthen patients’ immune systems, ensuring that the body can process and cleanse the cancer die-off and continue fighting the disease.
Amazing News: The Treatment is Working!
And in my case, the treatment is already delivering excellent results. My last PET scan showed a decrease in the size of the tumor mass, and my blood tumor markers have been steadily decreasing. After the initial 2.5 month, intensive “in-patient” phase of my treatment, I’m doing well enough that I’m able to return home.
My Treatment Plan: What’s Next
Though less intensive than the initial phase, my ongoing treatment regimen remains demanding. To ensure I don’t lose ground, it’s important that I regularly return to Phoenix for ongoing care, with greater frequency in the beginning, tapering over time once the cancer has been successfully killed off. For the time being, however, I will need to return to Phoenix two or three times per month depending on my progress.
The Bottom Line: I Really Need Your Help to Continue My Healing Journey
As you might imagine, this kind of private cancer treatment is expensive, and not covered by insurance. We’ve utilized our savings and family members across the country have been extremely generous; together we’ve covered the cost of the initial phase of treatment (along with travel and accommodations). We’d hoped that our financial situation would be different at this point, but despite my ability to keep working, we find ourselves short of the funds needed for the next phase.
Because so much depends on the timely continuation of my treatment, for the first time in my life, I’m reaching out to friends like you for assistance.
Your Donation Benefits Us Both
It’s extremely important that I maintain regular therapy to beat back this cancer. Your timely donation is crucial to my ongoing success – and urgently needed.
In the next month, I need to raise approximately $50,000 for the next phase. This covers the higher initial frequency of treatment, my travel to and from Phoenix, and my accommodations while I’m there. On a longer term basis, my doctors and I anticipate that I will need to raise an additional $150,000 in 2023.
To make the donation process as frictionless and friendly as possible, we’ve chosen this platform, as it is the only 501c3 non-profit crowdfunding platform that enables donors (both individuals and companies) to realize tax deductions from their donations. For many of you, we anticipate that this will bring real-world tax benefits for those making charitable contributions.
Your donation supports my healing journey with my family – it also keeps me around for our ongoing and future brilliant creative collaborations.
With your help, I’m looking forward to a bright and healthy future. From the bottom of our hearts, my family and I thank you for your kindness and generosity.
