Help Doug Sonnenberg Battle Cancer

Dear friends and family,

I am writing on behalf of my father, Doug Sonnenberg, and our family. My dad has been diagnosed with Stage 3 Multiple Myeloma. Due to complications from the cancer, he is currently paralyzed from the waist down. The diagnosis and quick progression of the disease came as a total shock to our family and left little time to process or plan. The cost of medical care has resulted in significant financial burden for our family. As anyone who has experienced cancer can attest, medical insurance only covers a fraction of the care.

The Story

Throughout the summer of 2022 he experienced increasing back pain. His primary care doctor only increased the strength of his pain medication and referred him to physical therapy with no diagnosis. Over the course of Thanksgiving week his pain became so unbearable that he could not get out of a chair or stand. We took him to the emergency room at Sharp Memorial Hospital on November 28th and he was there until February 6th-71 days. During those 71 days, he was in the ICU, cancer floor, rehab, back to ICU, back on a standard floor.

During his hospital stay we learned that he has stage 3 multiple myeloma, a cancer that attacks the bone marrow, making your bones extremely brittle and leaving you more susceptible to infections. The tumors caused compression along his spine, resulting in a damaged spinal cord. He underwent back surgery on December 1st to remove what tumor they could and attach 2 rods to his spine to fix the compression. A couple weeks later he also had surgery for a fractured shoulder. He spent 4 weeks in Sharp Acute Rehab to regain strength and learn how to continue life in a wheelchair. After a few trips back to the hospital for various infections, we took him home on February 6th to continue care and treatment at home.

This transition home has been a tremendous upheaval for our family, as he is unable to move on his own yet.

The last 2.5 months have been the most turbulent and heartbreaking experience. My goal with this fundraiser is to ease some of the stress by lessening the financial burden as much as possible. I hope the kindness and generosity of our family, friends, and community can help us hire home care to ease the burden on my stepmom, pay off the astronomical hospital and medication bills, and assist them in moving to a wheelchair friendly home.

Please feel free to share and help us spread the word. We thank everyone for their support and prayers.

-Doug, Claudia, Alex, and Jordan