Help Our Dad, Bob Petitt, Fight For His Life

Here’s the short story: 

It takes courage to ask for help. Anyone who uses GoFundMe, or other crowdfunding platforms, knows the fear and vulnerability of asking for help far too well. Please know that it took time to convince our stoic father to accept such help. But, we believe in the innate compassion and generosity of mankind – when our neighbor falls, we help pick them back up.

That’s why we are unabashedly asking for financial donations, to help our 68-year-old, unemployed father – Bob Petitt – fight for his life. He has faced a perfect storm of near-fatal health complications over the past three months, and immediate funds raised here will help him pay for:

--Immunotherapy treatments to battle his stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis
--Regular CT and MRI screenings to monitor the progression of his cancer
--Months-long cardiac rehabilitation after receiving a stent in his left anterior descending (LAD) artery – one of the main arteries to the heart – which was recently discovered to be 90% blocked 
--Other healthcare expenses that have escalated since his cancer diagnosis, including two ICU visits and two endoscopies to identify and stop internal bleeding in his stomach
--Basic living expenses, while he is unemployed from his delivery job at FedEx 

Now, here’s the longer story. 

In December 2017, our dad told us there was a malignant tumor in a concentrated area of his upper right lung, which physicians could surgically remove via an Upper Right Lobectomy. Though recovery included several months of discomfort (he had to adjust to living without 1/5th of his lung) and 24 hours a day on an oxygen tank for a month, our dad was cancer-free. We felt relief; in fact, his physicians reminded us that the risk of lung cancer returning after this procedure was low, and occurs in only 25% of patients.  

Yet, in September 2020, we learned our dad became one of the 25% of patients. 

The cancer did not creep up slowly, or gently make its presence known. It created a malignant nodule in his brain and infected four lymph nodes in his right lung, neck, chest, and spine. This produced debilitating pain that radiated throughout his torso; pain he had to power through, while working as an essential worker for FedEx during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

No, our dad’s lung cancer came back with a vengeance, and put him in the stage-4 category, with a prognosis of 5 years, if all goes well.  

Luckily, his oncology team decided he was eligible for immunotherapy, a newer and less physically-grueling form of cancer treatment that helps the immune system fight cancer. They started him on a cocktail of Opdivo and Yervoy, and the pain in his torso diminished immediately. It seemed like a miracle, that he could respond so well and so quickly to this treatment, and continue his FedEx job comfortably. 

However, what felt like hope was instead another fleeting moment of respite.  

Four days before Thanksgiving, our dad struggled to breathe and was heaving for air. Lifting and loading boxes on his FedEx truck, grocery shopping, biking recreationally, or even sitting on the couch became too difficult. That heaving turned into chest pain, which turned into a visit to the emergency room. 

That is when we learned, in a health scare completely unrelated to his cancer, our dad’s LAD artery was 90% blocked and required a stent. Many of you may better know the LAD artery as “the widow-maker” artery, since blockage to this artery is often fatal. Had he waited even a few days to go to the emergency room, he would have likely had a fatal heart attack.

Our dad’s cardiologist put him on aspirin and Plavix, a critical combination of drugs that keeps the stent open, as well as reduces the risk of future heart attacks or strokes. And yet, as fate would have it, our dad found himself in the hospital less than one week later. The aspirin – the vital blood thinner helping keep him alive – was also inadvertently killing him, by inducing a hemorrhaging ulcer in his GI tract. 

After losing and regaining consciousness due to blood loss, our dad called an ambulance. Within three days at the hospital, his hemoglobin levels fell from 13 (the normal level for men) to a life-threatening level of 6. With his blood pressure dropping, hospital staff immediately transported him to the ICU, where physicians and nurses across GI and ICU practices fought to keep him alive.  

At one point, the ICU floor physician called and asked if they should resuscitate our dad if his heart stopped beating. When we asked if he was going to die, the physician paused and said, “We are doing everything we can. We are going to try to save his life.” 

It took a Rapid Response Team consisting of 12 dedicated and selfless nurses and physicians, 8 blood transfusions, 2 endoscopies, and one week in the hospital, but saved his life they did. 

We are thrilled to say our dad is now in the comfort of his own home, slowly regaining strength, and recovering from the last month of near-fatal health scares. He can walk for short spurts of time comfortably, though fatigues too easily. Unfortunately, between his recently-placed stent, and recovering from such severe blood loss (which takes several months of recovery), our dad can no longer work for FedEx, and does not qualify for short or long-term disability. We are working on other forms of financial aid but, hope, through this fund, we can get enough donations to help our dad live comfortably over the next several months. 

We’ll say this again, because it merits repeating: It takes a lot of courage to ask for help. We feel that vulnerability. But, we also love our father so intensely, so unconditionally, and hope he will have as peaceful a life as possible while he is with us. 

With all of this said, we are asking for your help. We are indebted to you and any donation you have to offer. 

Thank you. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you, for helping our dad – so very much.

With love,
Camille and Sarah Petitt