Help Steve and Janet with medical bills.

Hello, my name is Jamie Frederick. As most of you know, my step-dad Steve has been battling colon cancer for the last year. He has endured several rounds of chemo therapy, shots and surgeries. The last surgery was a success but today his labs came back with possible cancer in a lymph node. Him and my mom Janet are still sitting on medical bills from this past year. We're just asking for donations for previous and future medical bills so that they're able to pay their mortgage etc. Anything will be helpful. If you cannot donate please share! Thank you! 

Edit from Janet...

I've moved up *Steve's Journey* [with a few tweaks] so that some may get an insight as to what Steve has been through and would like to add how thankful we are that he’s NOT exactly back to where he was almost 1 year ago, and is why we are keeping the faith he’s going to beat this!! 

   Steve's Journey -- On July 18th, 2022 after being rushed to shock trauma, Steve was diagnosed with colon cancer. At the time the doctor couldn’t tell us what stage, but assured us that it was not Stage-4! Regardless, the news was still devastating. After spending 2 days at UMMC Shock Trauma and what seemed like endless tests, Steve was sent home, but not before being set up with an awesome team of doctors. So, after only being home a few days, he received his surgery date to have, what was thought to be a 5cm mass removed through laparoscopy surgery. 

  On the 29th of July, the doctor went in to remove the mass but after further examination, she decided it wasn’t a good idea due to, it was larger [6.2cm] than she had anticipated and she was afraid of damaging either the colon or nearby organs if she tried removing it. The only alternative she was left with at that point was to leave the mass and do a temporary ostomy. So, after his 5 days stay on the 5th floor, Steve was discharged with a new “sidekick” *Stoma Stan*! Who, BTW, was not very cooperative once treatments began in the middle of August 2022. He would either be overly cooperative, and at times, not cooperative at all, but for the most part, he & Steve managed to deal with one another for those 5mths. Thankfully, our insurance along with the companies of these products covered everything needed for, Stoma Stan’s short [seemed very long] visit. The next step, shrink this invader with chemo treatments, which were supposed to be 12 total. During this process, it was very hard watching my love go through all of these treatments. At one point having to postpone [after the 3rd treatment] 1 due to his white count being too, low. Now, because of that setback, he was put on a very pricy medication called Ziextenzo. This med. costs anywhere between $4k-$8k, per inject which our insurance covered all but, $200 per., he received 5 total. On a positive note, in Oct. 2022 Steve had another CT scan, and it showed that the mass had shrunk in half after 3 treatments. It was now down from a 6.2 to 3.6cm mass. Treatments resumed once his white count went back up and continued into Nov. which is when my poor hubby just couldn’t take another treatment so, he stopped them until we had the results of his 2nd CT scan in Dec. 2022. Wouldn’t you know, the last 4 treatments shrunk the mass once again! It was now at 2.3cm and then his team of docs said it was a go for removal. 

  With that, on Dec. 16th, 2022 after what turned out to be a 7/8hr. surgery, my honey was mass free, and *Stoma Stan* was put back into his rightful place. Steve bounced back so well after surgery, he was discharged on the 21st, of Dec. and we would wait to hear the results from pathology. But before that could happen, Steve had a setback! Christmas Eve night everything changed! Steve was having issues and he was taken to the ER early Christmas morning and where he remained until, Jan 6th, 2023. It turned out, his intestines went back to sleep. This is called *Ileus* which is a lack of movement in the intestines. With that setback, it took another 2 weeks to get everything functioning properly. During that time, we did receive the pathology results which read … NO cancer found in the 13 lymph nodes that were removed. NO cancer was found in the small piece of the intestine the doctor removed or his removed appendix which she said looked a little suspicious. So, with those results, Steve was diagnosed with STAGE2 Colon Cancer. Now due to these results and how his cancer was treated his team of doctors decided further testing was needed in order to determine whether or not to proceed with the last 5 treatments, and if he’d be at risk of a reoccurrence. That is when the ctDNA test was suggested. 

                                                                  On January 29th, 2023 Steve had a CT-DNA test done. This test was to determine if there was any cancer left behind, like in his blood, etc.! The test is done by comparing the blood to a piece of tissue from the mass. So, on Feb. 23rd we received the results from his CT-DNA test … we were so happy to find out that it was *NEGATIVE* and that it was supposed to mean that Steve was CANCER-FREE!! We were also told that there was less than a 10% chance of reoccurrence. And now here we are 

                                                                   Steve said he has many reasons to continue his fight, and here is one of the reasons ... this pic that's attached to his story.

Update 8-30-2023

I spoke with Steve’s oncologist a bit ago; he said the treatments are decreasing the size of the two lymph nodes, and it looks promising. He does want Steve to do a 5th round of chemo this Friday, and then he'll [the doctor] meet with the tumor board next Tuesday to discuss giving Steve 3 or 5 rounds of radiation.

Update on Steve - We met with his radiologist today, and a PET scan has been scheduled for Steve to map out the exact course of action for his radiation. Right now, they're thinking Proton treatments will be the best treatment for Steve, but we won't know until the results from his scan come back. It was a very positive appointment!