Help Peter Barley Pancreatic Cancer Stage 4

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  Hello I am Niccolette, I am organizing this gofundme page for my husband Peter Barley who is the love of my life. We have been married for 29 years, I don't know what I would do without him, he is my best friend.  Pete has been diagnosed with  Pancreatic cancer stage 3 at 58yrs old, he also has an abdominal aortic aneurysm, degenerative spine disease with arthritis. 

 Pete is a veteran. Shortly after he graduated Lockport h.s in 1980, he joined the navy where he served on the USS Coral Sea Aircraft Carrier as an operations specialist. He returned home then attended Devry university before his electrician apprenticeship came up, he attended washburn trade school, served 4 yrs as a 134 electricial apprenticeship. He is a retired 3rd generation electrician, his grandfather, father and brother all served in the same IBEW union. He was taking heating and air conditioning classes at MVCC, when he was forced to retire after an injury on the job. He was working on top of a ladder when his line became live, he was electrocuted, falling between his ladder and scaffolding breaking 3 vertebrae and injuring his neck. Now he suffers neck, back pain and a rapid heart rate.  The electricity went through both hands putting burns on his hands and back and traveled through his whole body. He wasn't able to return to work, he is on social security disability. This happened 2 months from being vested 10yrs, so he does not get a pension.

 Pete was having stomach pain and nausea for sometime, he did a ct scan thinking he may have an ulcer. What they found was an AAA Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm. His vascular surgeon performed a AAA repair procedure and inserted a Y stent. A year later, Pete was still having stomach trouble and back pain was increasing, he was loosing alot of weight, bills were piling up. A year after aneurysm surgery they did another ct scan to see how things were going. The aneurysm shrank some but more importantly you have a head mass on your pancreas. They did a biopsy at Palos hospital its pancreatic cancer stage 2. Pete developed jaundice he had an ERCP procedure to install a a biliary stent. Which helped with jaundice to go away.   Then Pete completed a few months of a 3 drug combination of chemo therapy, May 18th 2021 was his last session. Now it was time to recoup and get ready for the surgery. Thats a Whipple procedure, which removes a portion of the pancreas, small intestine, stomach and the gallbladder, bile duct and 20 lymphnodes, cutting out the mass and then reattaching his organs with 3 brand new connections. The surgery was set for July 8th at Christ hospital, 3 days before our 29th anniversary. Pete has been so positive and ready to fight this from day 1. Pete is the nicest guy who is full of love for everyone he meets.

 

 July 8th he had his Whipple surgery, he had a few complications but it was a successful operation. He stayed at the hospital for a week and is now recovering at home. He is having alot of nausea and pain but is getting a little better everyday. He lost a bit more weight.  After 8 weeks of recovery he will be ready to start the second round of of chemo and radiation therapy. 

 

 It hurts my heart Pete is such a good person, he will help anyone who needs it, he is an animal lover and animals love him❤  He is kind, helpful, funny, and intelligent. He is a very caring person. He was a caregiver for his father who had heart failure and dementia. Then when my father had severe parkinsons and blood cancer, Pete was one of my Dads caregivers he stayed several weeks with my dad while my mom was in the hospital. One afternoon my dad was eating lunch, he had a very hard time swallowing due to parkinsons and he started choking, my dad passed out. My mom, my sister and I were so scared my dad was going to die. We called 911, Pete grabbed my dad balanced him on his knee and gave him the himlick manuver saving our dads life. He is a hero to us! It happened once more, again Pete saved the day.  My dad passed in september 2020. Pete was diagnosed a couple months later. He stood by me when I was diagnosed with kidney disease 4 months before we were married.  He has since then been by myside through all my health issues.  He is always there to help a family member, a friend or even a stranger if he needed a ride or gas money.  He would rescue any animal or creatures in need of help.  Stopping to save birds and turtles, kittens, dogs, mice, you name it lol.

   

 Everything is extremely expensive.  We have been trying to catch up from the AAA aneurysm debts and other past debts are coming out of our bank account monthly already and now this hit us. We are on a fixed income.  We are already struggling to get by.  We clench our teeth, the bills are extremely stressful, We get phone calls, bills and letters daily. We received a phone call from the oncologists office Peter was getting chemo at, it was billing, after insurance paid we still owed $5,000. at that point. She said it could delay his chemo treatments if not paid,  I know it sounds silly but the cost was the last thing we were thinking about. I said but he has one treatment left this round. We had no money in the bank to even make a payment. We were excited he was almost done with chemo for awhile. I am still upset about the call. Any delays could mean the cancer could progress.  Pete has medicare , no prescription, vision or dental. Medicare has been great to us but only pays 80%.  The cost of hospital stays, emergency visits, surgeries, treatments,  tests and chemo therapy is astronomical. We are asking for support for his medical bills, medical needs, car repairs, living costs.  Everything is extremely expensive.  

 Pancreatic cancer is hard to diagnose early and so he was very lucky they found it on the ct scan. There needs to be a sense of urgency in treating Peter as it is the quickest killing cancer. Petes doctors thinks we caught it early enough. 

 

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive cancers in existence. The average stage 1 pancreatic cancer progresses to stage 4 in just over 1 year. It kills quickly and causes multiple painful and dangerous symptoms including stomach pain, biliary obstruction, back and abdominal pain, nausea, fatigue, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, falls, dizziness and neuropathy..... pancreatic cancer is difficult to cure but Pete is positive and fighting!

  

 Petes cancer has started to grow outside of the pancreas, it has spread to the lymphnodes, stage 3 now. The pathology report came back, the cancer has spread to the tissue surrounding lymphnodes. The doctors are trying to keep it from spreading all over his body by using chemo and radiation therapies.  The oncologist wants him to do a different toxic cocktail of chemo now, there are four drugs in this one. Pete will go in and get treated for 6 hours, then they will hook up a small pump which will attach to the port in his chest. The pump will slowly release chemo for 48 hours at home then he goes back to remove the device. After about 4 treatments they will do another ct scan to see how things are going. It is too early to do ct scan now as his insides are still healing from surgery. He will continue chemo and possibly radiation therapy after the chemo, maybe more surgery if needed.  Pete will need many tests and treatments. Pete is fighting to live, please help us fight this deadly cancer   Please partner with us in supporting Pete with his care and to pray to get through this the best we can. He is unable to do the work he did to pay for expenses. He has excruciating back pain, he cannot lift anything, gets winded, shortness of breath, nauseated, pain, sleeplessness and dizziness.  He is staying positive.  I don't want him to worry about all this when he needs to concentrate on fighting this battle of his life. He has enough weight on his shoulders. Please forward and encourage friends to do the same. As a community we can help Pete with the financial uncertainty so he can focus on his recovery and kick cancer to the curb! We are praying daily for a miracle and ask you to join us.

  If you can contribute financially, please do so here and stay tuned for updates. We can’t thank you enough, as Pete is priceless to all of us. God bless you.

 Please ask your family, friends and churches to pray and contribute to Petes care. If you cannot contribute PLEASE SHARE❣❣❣❣

 God is good all the time, with God and friends everything is possible, Amen

Pray to give us strength to get through this. Pray for Pete ❤

Any donation is appreciated❣

Thank you for reading our story & please PLEASE SHARE OUR STORY,

Thank you

God bless you

Love you all❤❤❤❤

Peter & Niccolette Barley

Video of Peters 6 month chemo therapy completion celebration Now to see the radiation oncologist and chemo oncologist