James Needs Help. Cancer in the USA is tough.

June 18th:

More surgery. Problems with my car loan. More surgery. Keeping up with bills. More surgery. Hey I have another surgery today! We are getting closer to the part where they put me back together. But right now I just feel like I'm falling apart.

April 3rd:

Here's a post I made today on my blog: https://jameseichenberger.com/april-3/

There is also a link to a video. New voice. It's kind of amazing. big surgery on March 11th, so still in pretty heavy recovery mode, but it's going well, and for that I am very thankful... despite also being very impatient.

Updates October 5th:

Wow. Summer flew by. And soon we'll be doing all the holiday stuff. I'm really feeling like things are moving fast, I had a scan earlier this week to start getting ready for a reconstruction surgery on my face. That always felt like something that was "out in the future".

I am also still, a stage 4 cancer patient. My surgeon feels comfortable moving forward because the scans in my face have been clean. As always, this will be a "can we get insurance to pay for it" thing, so hopefully my health continues to improve and this all goes my way.

Again, a million thanks to everyone who donated, it is SO appreciated. I was going to work on a really nice "thank you" picture, but I also need to try to stay focused on work. I will make a nicer one, I promise.

If anyone wants to share this with their friends who bought Bitcoin at $0.00002 or whatever, please do. If you have any recommendations for my thank you sign please let me know.

Gonna share some of the "thank you" images I didn't use here.

Update: July 31:

This feels weird to say now, but I was honestly scared to put this out. I was afraid this was going to be an embarrassment and that my mom and sister were going to give me a few dollars and then it would just fade out.

Instead it was shared and filled and overwhelming to me instantly.

I have felt very out of touch with so many people with this cancer and covid double up thing. The money is a huge help, but honestly feeling the love from all of these people... from all of YOU people... has been by far the most rewarding thing about this whole experience.

The words "Thank You" don't even being to express how I feel. Your support emotionally and financially means so very much to me. The hospital will get pretty much all of the money, but I feel like a very rich person having this type of support from so many wonderful people.

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Hello, thank you for coming and checking out my page.

In 2019, I was diagnosed with Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma. It's a pretty rare cancer and unfortunately has a very high recurrence rate (that maybe foreshadowing... read on!!). I was originally treated with surgery and then once I was well enough after the resection surgery, I went through 7 weeks of radiation and chemo. It was rough on me and my family, but we got through it.

The weeks and months that followed were full of intense emotion and a lot of adjustment and worry. Huge toll on my mental health as I'm sure you'd imagine. Trying to just "keep on living" while working through daily pain, difficulty talking, almost constant appointments... blah blah. It was a lot to manage. So much gratitude for my nurses, doctors, therapists, techs and everyone else who helped me get in and out of the countless appointments as easily as possible.

I had some clean scans, but still worried. My doctor was sure that doing "local" scans was enough. The idea was that if there was a recurrence, it would happen in the original site. That same doctor VERY much went to bat for me to get the full body scan approved and I am thankful that I had a doctor who was willing to take the time to listen to me.

Through the recovery process, it was a challenge to just keep up with insurance premiums. Meanwhile, all of the medical bills just sort of piled up.

So, I need some help. It's hard to ask, but I feel like without some help getting rid of the old AND currently building medical balance is going to be impossible. A tiny bit of help, helps. Sharing this post... helps.

To be honest, I hate telling people I have cancer because it just feels like a bummer thing to talk about. So... I'll probably make 1,000 edits to this and hopefully add some fun content too, but we're going to put this out there now...

Thank you for considering helping. Love to you all. Be Well.