Son Diagnosed With Rare Aggressive Tumors

In October of 2020, our son, Anthony Schaaff, started experiencing intense pain in his right side. He was hospitalized for a week, and was diagnosed with a kidney tumor which had hemorrhaged. During his time in the hospital he developed sepsis and came close to losing his life. After months of bed rest, in January 2021, he had his tumor surgically removed through open surgery at Weil Cornell in New York City. After his ordeal, and he was fully healed, he moved permanently to Florida as he realized how short life can be and was always happiest down there. Just one month ago, he told his job in NYC that he would not be returning to NYC when the office started reopening post COVID in October. His job agreed to let him work remotely from Florida until February 2022. After that his employment would end. Just two weeks after resigning, Anthony had his follow up catscan per his surgeon. The catscan showed multiple reoccurring tumors on the kidney, adrenal gland, and around the liver. Biopsies showed a rare form of malignancy, angiomylipomas with epithloid cells. Shortly after his diagnosis, Anthony became very ill.  Constant fevers, chills, pain, and extremely low blood counts caused by the multiple tumors. He's fainted twice from low hemoglobin levels and has already required hospitalization and blood transfusions. We've been told by multiple surgeons that surgery is not an option to remove the tumors due to the progression of the disease. He is being treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC. Doctors are administering immunotherapy treatments every 3 weeks with the hopes of shrinking the tumors so that surgery may be an option. Sloan has told us that his condition is so rare that they have only seen a total of 20 documented cases in the history of the hospital. We do not know how long he will require treatment. It could be 6 months, or it could be 2 years before we see the results where surgery could be an option. During this time he will have costs to travel back and forth to NYC for treatment, home care costs, as well as the many medical costs which are not covered by his insurance. (The catscan which resulted in his diagnosis had to be paid out of pocket as insurance denied him.) In addition, his insurance will end when his employment ends in February, and COBRA costs are astronomical. We are asking for any help that can be offered during this time as we help our son fight for his life. God bless, Michael Schaaff and Mary Ferrera-Bottiglieri