Dan Clark's Fight Against Cancer

We are organizing a GoFundMe to help Dan and Robyn with their expenses as he continues to battle cancer. In January 2020, Dan was diagnosed with stage IV colorectal cancer which had metastasized to his liver and his lungs. While young-onset colorectal cancer rates are on the rise, treatment options are still limited. Over 32 months, Dan received 50+ rounds of various chemotherapy cocktails. He's handled it like a champ every time, and he's been very fortunate to avoid almost all side effects throughout his treatment.

In January 2022, things were growing and not responding to the regimens he had been on, so they moved on to the next drug, which proved to be ineffective. Finally, this past summer, they made a last-ditch effort with a new combo of drugs he'd been on before, which stalled things slightly but wasn't enough to keep things from growing. Knowing they would eventually run through all of the conventional options, earlier last year, they visited Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC several times to see if any clinical trials were available there, and they also reached out to the National Cancer Institute in Maryland, as well as continuing their outreach with Dana Farber in Boston, MA.

Finally, they reached out to MD Anderson in Houston, TX (#1 cancer center in the US) in September. Dan was set up with a promising Phase I trial and started in October. The trial required multi-day visits to Houston every three weeks. Unfortunately, by mid-December, Dan started to have an adverse reaction to the trial medication, and it was decided to remove him from the trial. Not missing a beat, his oncologist found a new trial which Dan started this week. It's a Phase 1 trial of a drug being used on humans for the first time. The trial is very tiresome, requiring weekly visits to Texas for the first cycle and biweekly visits thereafter.

Since starting the trips to Houston, neither Dan nor Robyn have been able to work and they've now made the difficult, but necessary decision, to pass Mount Dessert Bakery on to someone else. At this time, Robyn needs to focus solely on Dan's care, but monthly bills and mounding travel expenses are weighing on them. Anything we can do to ease their burden is greatly appreciated.