Eric’s Cancer Journey is over. Help pay for his services.

Hi, my name is Bobbi and I am Eric’s wife. Due to my husband’s bladder cancer and repeated hospital stays due to complications from that surgery we have taken out several loans to pay medical bills and other monthly bills due to us both missing work.

Eric was diagnosed with bladder cancer in May 2020 and done chemo. He had surgery to remove his bladder, prostate, and 7 lymph nodes in Aug. 2020. We spent several weeks in the hospital in St. Louis. They cut out a section of his small bowel and made it into his new bladder and then connected his ureters. There is a stoma, an opening on the abdomen on the outside of his body that is connected to his urinary system to allow urine to leave the body. He wears a catheter bag over his stoma to catch the urine.

Since then, he has been admitted about 5 times with small bowel obstructions, and last time and this current time he was admitted with small bowel obstruction and sever hydronephrosis (a condition characterized by excess fluid in the kidneys due to a backup of urine.)

Each time they place an NG tube in his nose down into his stomach and it is hooked up to suction to empty the contents of his stomach decompressing the small bowel. The NG tube stays in and he stays in the hospital until he is able to have a normal bowel movement.

This time his kidneys were so backed up that they did surgery last night, Jan. 23, 2023, and placed 2 drainage tubes into his kidneys. They will remain in place until his doctors are confident that his kidneys will recover and continue producing urine.

At this time, we don’t know how long he will be hospitalized and how long we both will be out of work. The doctors have mentioned transferring him back to St. Louis, where his bladder and prostate where removed, and his original surgeon doing another major surgery in hopes of stopping this from reoccurring.

Last time and this time he became septic, an infection in his blood. They are treating that this time as well with antibiotics. The antibiotics will more than likely be changed as his blood cultures continue to grow the infection and they are able to identify it. What caused him to be septic, to have a blood infection, is the kidneys where so backed up with urine that the urine leaked out into his blood stream.

We want to thank you for taking the time to read our story and for any help that you may provide. Thank you as well for all your prayers. We truly appreciate each and everyone of you. May God bless you.