Michael's Battle Fund
Donation protected
I’m not sure where to begin, there’s so much to tell but I know folks have limited time these days to read, watch, etc. So I’ll start with saying thank you to those that
a) take the time to read our story
b) decide to donate
c) send out positive thoughts and prayers.
My name is Nikki and I am raising money for my brother Michael who was diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer, the disease metastasized to his liver. It has been a strenuous 24 months since. Not even the doctors thought he would make it this far. But with many surgeries, treatments, determination, support and a positive attitude, Michael has continued to beat all the odds that were stacked against him with his prognosis. His brave soul continues to amaze me.
Money is tight. I’m sure that goes without saying for any family that has dealt with the wrath of cancer. Michael works full time, driving 100 miles roundtrip to/from work. Of course there are times that he is unable to work, post surgeries or when treatments prove to be too much and his body calls for a time out.
This guy is a dad. A wonderful dad with four kids. Two in their early 20s and also 10-year old twins that require his full time support. There’s no nest egg with cancer, it drains you physically, emotionally and financially. So as you can imagine, all of his PTO has been used to-date and long-term disability only goes so far, leaving little to no money to feed and clothe pre-teen kids, let alone pay bills to keep the lights on.
This is the story from my POV, so I’m writing this on his behalf, his kids…our family.
I remember the day my Mom called to tell me that my brother Michael was diagnosed, I couldn’t process her words. I thought…why Mike? Why now? How will we be able to afford this? As a family we have experienced multiple folks that battled through cancer, although not easy for them, most were stories of success. It felt like a giant punch to the gut to have another family member hit with this news.
The initial prognosis was positive with 90+% chance of survival—chemo, radiation and surgery were all planned out. Although the mass was in a “grey area” the surgical team felt confident they could remove everything in one surgery. That’s where the journey began to turn…
Timeline Post Diagnosis
Fall 2014 - 5x days a week for 5x weeks of radiation and pill form of chemo, hundreds of scans taken. Michael is still working full time.
January 2015 – Surgery to remove a section of his intestines and the mass. Complications from surgical errors caused additional surgeries and time spent in the hospital. During surgery, the doctor sees “spots” on his liver. PET scan followed.
February 2015 - The results were in, and not good. The tumors metastasized to his liver, I think 17x tumors to be exact.
Again, I had to hear my mom tell me the bad news as she choked back emotion to get the words out. As she talked, there was a loud ringing in my ears and I had blurred vision because of the tears. What she was saying, just didn’t make sense. My mom was trying to tell me that my brother only had a 6% to 20% chance of survival, this was not ok. To make matters worse, his doctors were not optimistic, their initial thoughts were very limited. He was not a candidate for a liver transplant or resection due to the amount of tumors and their location(s).
As a family unit, we couldn’t accept this, we had to find a second opinion in hopes the next doctors would tell us that his doctors at the time were wrong. So we met with another hospital system, they were more hopeful in terms of viability. They admitted that it wouldn’t be easy, there would be a mix of trial and error, but at least they had given us hope even though his prognosis remained the same. But to us, he still had a fighting chance.
The new team of doctors agreed that Mike stick with his chemo doctor to administer treatments (it was much closer to his home) and the new team would monitor, review scans and provide feedback throughout the way. Once his chemo treatments ended, they would take over for all next steps.
March 2015 – Chemo infusions begin every two weeks through May. In the meantime, Mike went back to work full time. Scans continue and prognoses changed weekly, heck sometimes daily.
Summer 2015 – After a short break from treatments, his chemo cocktail was upgraded, more aggressive to attack those tumors that were unwilling to react. This resulted in skin rashes, neuropathy, fatigue, you name it. The chemo infusions ended mid-December as they wanted his body to heal, prepping him for a new procedure in January 2016. Mike continued working full time, his attitude remained positive, hopeful.
January 2016 – Since Mike was not a candidate for a liver resection, they implemented chemoablations to the liver. One lobe completed. It was painful beyond words, so I won’t even begin to describe it. He recovers slowly over six weeks, PTO and LTD kick in. Money begins to be beyond tight.
March 2016 – Scans from the first round show no change since the chemoablation, the tumors are the same. The oncology team feels confident the second round of ablation and additional drip chemo will make the difference. The second chemoablation is right next to his stomach, the pain is worse than the first round.
Spring 2016 – Over the following weeks, Michael has time to heal, but they want to start aggressive chemo with one drug, every other week for a whole year. For some reason, they delay chemo. He goes back to work full time with a positive attitude while money continues to be tight.
July 2016 – Back to drip chemo, one treatment in, more scans completed. The doctors say they want to resection, the chemoablations appeared to have “worked” with the exception of a stubborn tumor. This of course is news to us. Admittedly, the doctors were surprised that he made this far, as well as he did.
August 2, 2016 – Resection occurred, they cut out a section of his liver like a slice of pie. So far, so good. A biopsy will be completed from what they found. He looks and feels pretty good, all things considered. Obviously it’s all still fresh as it happened just yesterday, but we are all optimistic there are better things to come.
So what is next?
My goal is to raise as much money as we can for Mike and his family so he can focus on getting better vs. worrying about his finances. The funds will be used immediately to help safeguard against any lapse in house, car and other payments needed.
I’ve never really asked for anything like this before, so it’s very foreign to me…almost surreal. Words of gratitude escape me outside of “please help” and “thank you”.
These next three to four months will be a tough stretch without his paid time off and limited pay with LTD. So I will sign off with this, I appreciate any of the following: a monetary donation, kind words, additional support opportunities, etc.
Every dollar goes a long way.
With love and gratitude,
The Walker Family
a) take the time to read our story
b) decide to donate
c) send out positive thoughts and prayers.
My name is Nikki and I am raising money for my brother Michael who was diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer, the disease metastasized to his liver. It has been a strenuous 24 months since. Not even the doctors thought he would make it this far. But with many surgeries, treatments, determination, support and a positive attitude, Michael has continued to beat all the odds that were stacked against him with his prognosis. His brave soul continues to amaze me.
Money is tight. I’m sure that goes without saying for any family that has dealt with the wrath of cancer. Michael works full time, driving 100 miles roundtrip to/from work. Of course there are times that he is unable to work, post surgeries or when treatments prove to be too much and his body calls for a time out.
This guy is a dad. A wonderful dad with four kids. Two in their early 20s and also 10-year old twins that require his full time support. There’s no nest egg with cancer, it drains you physically, emotionally and financially. So as you can imagine, all of his PTO has been used to-date and long-term disability only goes so far, leaving little to no money to feed and clothe pre-teen kids, let alone pay bills to keep the lights on.
This is the story from my POV, so I’m writing this on his behalf, his kids…our family.
I remember the day my Mom called to tell me that my brother Michael was diagnosed, I couldn’t process her words. I thought…why Mike? Why now? How will we be able to afford this? As a family we have experienced multiple folks that battled through cancer, although not easy for them, most were stories of success. It felt like a giant punch to the gut to have another family member hit with this news.
The initial prognosis was positive with 90+% chance of survival—chemo, radiation and surgery were all planned out. Although the mass was in a “grey area” the surgical team felt confident they could remove everything in one surgery. That’s where the journey began to turn…
Timeline Post Diagnosis
Fall 2014 - 5x days a week for 5x weeks of radiation and pill form of chemo, hundreds of scans taken. Michael is still working full time.
January 2015 – Surgery to remove a section of his intestines and the mass. Complications from surgical errors caused additional surgeries and time spent in the hospital. During surgery, the doctor sees “spots” on his liver. PET scan followed.
February 2015 - The results were in, and not good. The tumors metastasized to his liver, I think 17x tumors to be exact.
Again, I had to hear my mom tell me the bad news as she choked back emotion to get the words out. As she talked, there was a loud ringing in my ears and I had blurred vision because of the tears. What she was saying, just didn’t make sense. My mom was trying to tell me that my brother only had a 6% to 20% chance of survival, this was not ok. To make matters worse, his doctors were not optimistic, their initial thoughts were very limited. He was not a candidate for a liver transplant or resection due to the amount of tumors and their location(s).
As a family unit, we couldn’t accept this, we had to find a second opinion in hopes the next doctors would tell us that his doctors at the time were wrong. So we met with another hospital system, they were more hopeful in terms of viability. They admitted that it wouldn’t be easy, there would be a mix of trial and error, but at least they had given us hope even though his prognosis remained the same. But to us, he still had a fighting chance.
The new team of doctors agreed that Mike stick with his chemo doctor to administer treatments (it was much closer to his home) and the new team would monitor, review scans and provide feedback throughout the way. Once his chemo treatments ended, they would take over for all next steps.
March 2015 – Chemo infusions begin every two weeks through May. In the meantime, Mike went back to work full time. Scans continue and prognoses changed weekly, heck sometimes daily.
Summer 2015 – After a short break from treatments, his chemo cocktail was upgraded, more aggressive to attack those tumors that were unwilling to react. This resulted in skin rashes, neuropathy, fatigue, you name it. The chemo infusions ended mid-December as they wanted his body to heal, prepping him for a new procedure in January 2016. Mike continued working full time, his attitude remained positive, hopeful.
January 2016 – Since Mike was not a candidate for a liver resection, they implemented chemoablations to the liver. One lobe completed. It was painful beyond words, so I won’t even begin to describe it. He recovers slowly over six weeks, PTO and LTD kick in. Money begins to be beyond tight.
March 2016 – Scans from the first round show no change since the chemoablation, the tumors are the same. The oncology team feels confident the second round of ablation and additional drip chemo will make the difference. The second chemoablation is right next to his stomach, the pain is worse than the first round.
Spring 2016 – Over the following weeks, Michael has time to heal, but they want to start aggressive chemo with one drug, every other week for a whole year. For some reason, they delay chemo. He goes back to work full time with a positive attitude while money continues to be tight.
July 2016 – Back to drip chemo, one treatment in, more scans completed. The doctors say they want to resection, the chemoablations appeared to have “worked” with the exception of a stubborn tumor. This of course is news to us. Admittedly, the doctors were surprised that he made this far, as well as he did.
August 2, 2016 – Resection occurred, they cut out a section of his liver like a slice of pie. So far, so good. A biopsy will be completed from what they found. He looks and feels pretty good, all things considered. Obviously it’s all still fresh as it happened just yesterday, but we are all optimistic there are better things to come.
So what is next?
My goal is to raise as much money as we can for Mike and his family so he can focus on getting better vs. worrying about his finances. The funds will be used immediately to help safeguard against any lapse in house, car and other payments needed.
I’ve never really asked for anything like this before, so it’s very foreign to me…almost surreal. Words of gratitude escape me outside of “please help” and “thank you”.
These next three to four months will be a tough stretch without his paid time off and limited pay with LTD. So I will sign off with this, I appreciate any of the following: a monetary donation, kind words, additional support opportunities, etc.
Every dollar goes a long way.
With love and gratitude,
The Walker Family
Organizer and beneficiary
Nikki Walker
Organizer
White Lake Township, MI
Michael Walker
Beneficiary