Christian Brouwer’s Medical Expenses and Care

Hi, my name is Marissa Napier. Basically family to Lydia Vondoloski and her husband, Christian Brouwer.

I wanted to start this go fund me page for the Brouwer/VonDoloski family to help cover some of the expenses while Christian is seeking treatment.

The fund raised will specifically help with any costs the come up. Whether it be a hotel, gas, meals, and other extra expenses that come up. Some appointments are not able to stay local and will need to take place in Portland. Also, the extra time that is required out if a regular day is affecting the time worked for both Christian and Lydia. These funds will be a blessing to the family and we appreciate anything you are able to give. 

If you aren’t aware of their story, please read the post below written by Lydia on April 10, 2022.

Life has been a little chaotic since the Holiday season last year for our family. Since that time, Christian has been getting medical attention over these past couple of months and it has required going to many appointments for testing, and follow-ups, medication adjustments, and just overall check-ins.

This experience has felt, both like everything is dragging as slowly as possible without time stopping altogether and flying at the speed of light.

This process started for us back in December, while we were in Michigan, Christian went to the ER with extreme pain in his leg, as well as feeling faint and having trouble breathing. The hospital ran tests, and ruling out something serious, like a blood clot, sent him home and told him to see his general physician.

As we were setting up the appointments while back home in Oregon, he had to go back to the ER in early February for similar symptoms and they told him they thought it was related to anxiety and to see his general physician.

While seeing his doctor, she ordered an x-ray (which neither hospital had done), and that's where the testing began and we have been waiting for weeks to get to each next step, MRI, consultations with multiple specialists, bloodwork, and a biopsy.

Last week, Christian was diagnosed with what the OHSU doctors believe is Ewing's Sarcoma. We are still waiting on advanced pathology which might indicate more specifics, but they know enough to start a treatment plan.

He had a PET scan on Friday which was very good news, the cancer is localized and not spread to his lungs or other areas. We are also waiting on port placement and after that Christian will be starting chemotherapy. Because this is an aggressive type of cancer, they treat it aggressively, with the goal of full remission. Currently, the plan is for this to be in-patient chemo, where he would be admitted to the hospital or clinic for a few days at a time, but we are taking it one day at a time and can decide to do out-patient if his body handles the treatment well.

Currently in the tentative plan, this will include 2-week rotations of in-patient chemo for the next 2-3 months, surgery to remove the tumor in his leg, and chemotherapy for the rest of the year at least. It will be an A/B schedule. The A schedule will be 2 days of treatment, and 12 days at home. The B schedule will be 5 days of treatment, and 9 days home. After chemo, surgery, and the follow-up chemo, they will make a determination about whether radiation treatment will be necessary as well.

Just from having told a small handful of individuals, the outpoured love has been felt by both myself and Christian. Thank you so much for your support! It has been such a blessing. Because we don't know how he will do with treatment, how compromised his immune system will be or other factors, we are just going to be taking it one day at a time, and we may be in and out of work and other social engagements for a while.

I know that for myself, the more information there is, the more I want to know. Right now, I don't have the capacity to be able to share this information with you guys in any way that was clear or made sense. If you are interested in updates on how things are going with Christian. Because of this, Jordan and Marissa Napier will know more about things as they happen and can answer questions you might have about what's going on in our personal lives. Feel free to ask them questions if you have them. Marissa will be keeping this page updated as we continue with treatment, and follow-up appointments.

Prayers for strength, patience, and positive attitudes are more than encouraged. Thank you all again for your continued support and patience!

Christian and Lydia

For more updates, please see their site https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/christianbrouwer/journal