Josh's Fight Against Metastatic Cancer

Fizz’s Fight Against Metastatic Cancer

In the fall of 2021, Josh Ahrns (“Fizz” to those who know his zest for life) started experiencing abdominal pain. Even his beloved Skyline chili wasn’t sitting well. The initial workup, including labs and imaging tests, was inconclusive. Couldn’t be anything too serious for an otherwise healthy 34-year-old. But something wasn’t right. Finally, the weekend before Thanksgiving, the news came. It was stomach cancer.

Josh bravely started an aggressive form of chemotherapy just before Christmas. Not exactly the present he was hoping for that year. But – after several rounds of treatment, the new scans showed hope: the cancer had shrunk. To help improve Josh’s chances, a total gastrectomy was recommended. In March 2022, Josh had his entire stomach and part of his esophagus removed. Recovering from such a procedure was unimaginable but not one to advertise his own struggles, Josh gamely endured test after test, poke after poke, multiple hospital stays, and a variety of treatments.

Around a year after his initial diagnosis, Josh started feeling pain again. We all hoped it was nerve related, a common side effect from immunotherapy treatment. But a December PET scan revealed suspicious “mesenteric haziness”. It wasn’t definitively cancer, but it wasn’t not cancer. Another scan mid-January 2023 confirmed what we had been dreading: the cancer had spread to his peritoneum.

(For those of you, like me, who respond to that with “Huh? What in the world does that mean?” It means aggressive cancer cells have lined the inside wall of his abdominal cavity that contains lots of important organs like kidneys, liver, pancreas, etc. Because it’s widespread and thus challenging to treat, this metastasized cancer can potentially be slowed down but is not considered curable.)

Less than a week later, Josh started a new batch of chemotherapy treatments. There’s a lot we don’t know. We don’t know what the next set of scans will say – is the chemo working or not? Will the cancer stay put or show up somewhere else? Will the latest research lead to an improved outcome? We don’t know what the future looks like.

What we do know is that Josh is surrounded by an incredible support system: all of you. While we can’t collectively endure chemo for him, go to his countless appointments for him, or even eat for him (despite our best efforts), we can help alleviate the day-to-day stress of managing medical bills and living expenses. We can help enable Josh to travel to visit friends and his favorite nature spots as he feels able to do so. We can help show him that although his cancer experience is deeply personal, he will never have to navigate it alone.

Please join Fizz in his fight. Your support is so appreciated.