Erin Bronson is Beating Cancer, and You Can Help

To know her is to love her. And if you know her, you know her radiant smile, her wicked wit, and her enormous heart that carries each of our hearts with her wherever she goes. You also know that she is never one to back down from a challenge. Today, she is facing the challenge - the fight - of her life.

My wife Erin Bronson is heroically fighting stage four colon cancer. And while she has a great job and good insurance, the out of pocket expenses to fight this battle are immense. She has been unable to work since June 2023, and her very aggressive chemotherapy treatment and surgeries are expected to last into spring of 2024. She will not be able to work until then at the earliest, and possibly later. Her insurance deductible will reset at the end of the year.

We humbly ask family and friends who are able to help to find it in your hearts to do so. Many of you already have, and for that we are eternally grateful. No donation is too small. Every bit makes a difference and goes toward saving Erin's precious life. Donations will be used to pay medical bills and help offset our lost wages.

That is the reason we have set up this GoFundMe. For those interested in knowing more about how we got here, our story continues below.

In June 2023, Erin went to see a doctor at a walk-in clinic due to increasingly intense abdominal pain. X-ray imaging was done, but no cause was revealed and the pain only worsened. Eventually the doctor recommended she go to the emergency room for a CT scan, so we went. That night, after the scan and ultrasound imaging, the emergency room physician said that she suspected appendicitis. And then she said one of those words you never want to hear from a doctor: metastasis. This was one of the most frightening moments of our lives.

While still at the emergency room, appointments with surgeons and specialists were made for the very next day. The following morning, we found ourselves in the Office of Gynecological Oncology at St. Dominic, where appendicitis was confirmed. After viewing the CT scan and ultrasound images, the doctor said Erin's ovaries were dangerously enlarged, but she did not think cancer was present. Plans were made for surgery - an appendectomy and total hysterectomy - scheduled for three weeks later. Turns out that was far too long.

After two more visits to the emergency room for intensifying pain the following week, Erin finally had surgery sooner than originally planned. While the procedure went relatively well, her appendix had in fact perforated, causing the unbearable pain that no one in the emergency room could figure out (despite a confirmed diagnosis of appendicitis). Her ovaries and the rest of her reproductive organs were removed and examined. While we waited for the results of testing the ovarian cells, a painful abscess developed in her abdomen, and Erin again went into the hospital for a procedure to drain the fluid that had built up after her appendectomy and hysterectomy surgery.

And then we received the results from the tests on her ovarian cells. Our hopes were dashed and our greatest fear became reality: Erin's ovaries had essentially been destroyed by cancer cells.

The evidence did in fact suggest that the ovarian cancer cells were metastatic - the ovaries were not the original source of the cancer. Doctors said the evidence strongly suggested the source to be in the colon. Despite the damage this had done to her other organs, this was good news. Colon cancer responds far better to chemotherapy than ovarian cancer. Her oncologist is optimistic that aggressive chemo treatment (and eventual surgery to remove the tumor) can rid Erin of this "squatter," as she prefers to call it.

A few weeks later, a PET scan revealed what appeared to be excessive cell activity in Erin's colon. This was enough for the oncologist to make a plan for chemotherapy to begin attacking the squatter as soon as possible.

Erin started chemotherapy on August 7, 2023, three days after her 45th birthday. The initial plan was to receive 12 rounds of chemo treatment, once every two weeks. The treatment plan is so aggressive that she spends six to eight hours at the oncology clinic each visit, and then goes home with a chemo pump that she is tethered to for an additional two days. In total, she receives ten different chemotherapy drugs every time she visits the oncologist.

After the first couple of rounds of chemo, a colonoscopy revealed visual confirmation of colon cancer and its location. The squatter has set itself up at Erin's ileocecal valve, which is the junction between the last part of the small intestine and the first part of the large intestine. That is also fortunate news, because eventual surgical removal at that location is much easier to recover from. Once the tumor is taken out, the sections are surgically fused back together. No section of the colon needs to be removed, and healing can begin immediately.

The surgeon was prepared to schedule surgery right away, but the oncologist made the call to wait and let the chemo continue to work at shrinking the tumor.

These treatments leave her exhausted, nauseated, in tremendous pain, and unable to eat, exercise, or work. On her off-chemo weeks, she gradually begins to feel somewhat better, but then it starts all over again. Today, we are halfway through the 12 rounds of chemo. The oncologist is giving her a one-month break to try to recover and have a couple of good weeks during which we hope she can eat normal meals and put some weight back on. She has lost over 40 pounds over the course of the last five months, and will almost certainly lose any weight she gains during this break once the chemo starts back up again.

Erin will have another PET scan on November 7, 2023 to determine how the squatter is responding to the poison it's being fed. If the results show the tumor is shrinking significantly, the oncologist may dial back some of the chemo drugs. We are very hopeful for this outcome. But either way, Erin has several more months of costly and debilitating treatment and surgery to go through before this war is won.