Help with Richard Bustamante's Medical Expenses

Dr. Susan Schulman and her husband Richard Bustamante have spent the last 7 years in a fight for his life as he struggled to live with stage 4 throat and lung cancers. In 2014 Rich was diagnosed with stage 4 throat cancer. He survived 2 horrendous surgeries, chemo, and radiation that caused a 50% disability to his dominant right arm. This would’ve stopped any person from playing tennis again, that did not stop Rich, one year later he started playing again as his love for tennis is so great.

Then In 2017 Rich was misdiagnosed with asthma. It was stage 4 lung cancer and pneumonia.

At that time the doctors wanted him to do more chemo and radiation. In a fight for his life again, he was able to find a doctor that would do immunotherapy and radiation instead of chemo. Susan knew that RIch would not have survived another round of chemotherapy. This was then confirmed by his doctor. Rich and Sue then attended a 3-week cancer Program in Florida and he remained cancer-free for about 9 months. When the tumors started coming back he started a new immunotherapy cocktail.

In November 2020, Rich was given a designer chemo because the doctor was not sure if there was a tumor growing in scar tissue that was seen on an MRI.

In 2021 Rich was misdiagnosed with pneumonia, treated wrong, and he didn’t eat for 10 days and lost 15 more pounds. Susan kept advocating for Rich until he was diagnosed with pneumonitis (which was caused by the chemo) and then he was treated correctly. Although Rich constantly felt sick from the treatments, he continued to play competitive tennis. During the period of time he couldn’t play tennis, he coached the NYIT college tennis teams. Every time it looked like he was going to lose his match with life and was counted out by doctors, he kept fighting while looking for other treatments.

Anyone living with a loved one who has cancer knows how draining, heart-wrenching, and devastating it can be emotionally and financially on the entire family. Dr. Sue is a beloved chiropractor and she understood the ramifications of his situation. Dr. Sue also has helped so many others.

In the past few months, Rich’s tumors came back with a vengeance. The tumor was now the size of a softball and was pressing on his pulmonary artery and stomach. The tumor made it impossible for Rich to eat more than a morsel of food and made it hard for him to breathe, they were untreatable, He had already reached radiation saturation. This was the end.

Once again, Rich was in a fight for his life, then Sue’s sister, researched and found a recently FDA-approved cancer treatment called Verthermia that is for terminally ill cancer patients. Sue could not imagine life without Rich so she researched this procedure to find out if Rich was a candidate, and gratefully he was.

The Verthermia procedure was not covered by health insurance at a cost of $265,000 and had to be wired immediately to get Rich on the schedule. Rich’s weight was dropping daily, he was down to 135 pounds from his 190+ pre-cancerous frame and he was eating very little. If Rich could not find another procedure to shrink the tumor, he was to start chemo and radiation the next day. Within 3 days of inquiring, Rich got medical clearance. Sue then gathered all their liquid assets, made travel plans, canceled her patient appointments, and borrowed the rest of the money from the family.

Sue and Rick left for Texas on a wing and a prayer.

Although the Verthermia procedure was successful it was especially difficult for Rich because he had scar tissue in his throat from his previous cancer surgeries & radiation. He ended up having to be intubated twice and was sedated for over 28 hours until the swelling in his throat went down. When they finally pulled out the tube he was in severe pain and could not speak or eat for another 5-6 days, losing more weight.

On August 3, 2021, Rich and Sue returned home from Texas. Rich is finally eating consistently, something he has not been able to do for 6 months. There is newfound hope!.

They have also spent over $150,000 in out-of-pocket expenses not covered by health insurance, like stem cell infusions. Going forward in order to keep up with all the additional treatments, they decided to do a GoFundMe page to help with all the medical expenses.

We will keep you posted on his journey…………………………………...