Help a Writer Recover from Bone Marrow Cancer

HELP D. FOY CRUSH BONE MARROW CANCER WILL BE COMING TO A CLOSE.

This is the final time we'll set a new fundraising goal. And our final major update is posted below.

What--truly what--would we do without you?

(For those of you who want to read our whole story, click “more” below.)

Boundless love and gratitude.

HELP D. FOY CRUSH BONE MARROW IS ENTERING ITS FINAL PHASE!

D was diagnosed with late-stage Multiple Myeloma exactly a year ago.

Last Thursday we received the news we've been waiting for since then.

The fundraiser continues. An update with more details is posted below.

In the meantime, thank you, dear every single one of you.

xoxoxoxxo and all love

HELP D. FOY CRUSH BONE MARROW CANCER IS STARTING ITS NEXT PHASE as D enters his next phase of treatment. Our original story is below. Now D is about to have a bone marrow transplant. It’s very hard to ask, but he needs your help more than ever. 

THE EMERGENCY 

 

January 6, 2022.

A devastating thing has happened. My sweetheart, David Foy O’Brien—many of you know him as “D”—has been diagnosed with multiple myeloma: cancer of the bone marrow. There are three stages of this incurable disease. D is hovering between stages two and three.

 

D has always made his way with nothing but tenacity and grit. He doesn’t know what it means to give up. But now he needs your help.

We are still in shock. Even so, we’ve suspected for years that something was terribly wrong. Since 2015, D has had nine major surgeries. He has had deep vein thrombosis, multiple attacks of kidney stones, degenerative disc disease, nerve damage, hypertension, and chronic fatigue. He parented Beckett, now nine years old, alongside me through the pandemic, feeling worse and worse every day without an answer why. If it weren’t for the hematologist who diagnosed him by chance, we still wouldn’t know. Thankfully, D has landed in the capable hands of multiple myeloma specialists at Mt. Sinai. They believe he has had this disease for a decade and that the above afflictions—which he was told, over and over, were unconnected—are likely related to this cancer.

 

Sixty percent of D’s bone marrow is malignant. The myeloma has eaten holes into his pelvis, ribs, vertebrae, and skull. A brain scan has also revealed that he has recently suffered a stroke.

 

D has begun receiving intensive weekly treatments that fight the cancer and radically suppress his immune system. These will continue for around five months. Then he will undergo an immunotherapy procedure that will require him to live in a sterile hospital room for several weeks. The recovery time from that therapy is two to three months. After that, the skeletal areas with larger lesions may require surgery to reinforce them with metal fixtures.

 

Getting COVID could kill D. An infection could also be fatal or derail his treatment. Another stroke would be catastrophic. All through the treatments and for some time beyond we will need to keep him safe from both pathogens and stress.

 

In the best-case scenario, it will be summer of 2023 before D can truly return to regular life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE COSTS

The expenses of being in treatment for advanced systemic cancer are huge.

 

The expenses of being in treatment for advanced systemic cancer in a pandemic are astounding.

 

Add a 4th-grader and a partner to the mix, and the expenses are astronomic.

 

I am asking for your help now because we can’t get through this without you. Please help save D’s life.

 

D can’t work. Expenses are mounting daily. We have lost half our income. My contingent faculty salary doesn’t begin to cover our essential expenses. We don’t have a cushion.

 

Your donations will prevent the bottom from falling out of our family’s life. They will help to ensure that our basic costs of living are covered, that D is safe and able to receive his medical care, and that I also have a support system to stay strong for the long haul.

We are both incredibly private people. To ask for help publicly has been a hard step to take. But here we are. 

 

Our gratitude is immense. We aren’t taking anything for granted. 

 

 

THE WAYS YOU CAN HELP

Multiple Myeloma is no longer a death sentence. Treatments are advancing all the time, There are miraculous new therapies. D's doctors tell us that under the right conditions and with the right strategy, he has a good chance at long-lasting remission and a good life

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I spent the first three weeks after D’s diagnosis flailing internally and crying in the living room at night while D was sleeping. I didn’t want him to hear me breaking down. One night he woke up and found me curled on the couch in the dark. He sat on the floor with his serene face next to my wet one, and he reminded me that we will get through this together. He was right, of course. We will get through this together.

 

I’m lucky enough to have our friends Amanda Stern, Matthew Binder, and Anderson Berry on the team. And D is getting extra help, as always, from his friend Bill W.

 

With love, hope, and gratitude,

Nelly