justice for ruda

Hello friends and family,

I hate reaching out to you like this, but the time has come where we are running out of options. Your help now could make a huge a difference.

Where do we start... 3 1/2 years ago Randy was diagnosed with an extremely rare cancer called Neuroendocrine Tumors. Throughout the entire battle, Randy has been positive and has kept up the fight, doing everything the physicians have asked of him. With a cocktail of drugs, we've been able to keep his tumors from growing, that is until now.

Unfortunately, 2017 has not been good to us. The drugs that they have been giving him have stopped working and his tumors have begun to grow. We've had many hospital stays and procedures to keep the worst of them from taking over. Randy spends many days sleeping through his pain or too sick to be in the heat. He hasn't been able to work full-time in 6 months. Fortunately, insurance has covered a bulk of our expenses. But our next step is not covered. This is why I am reaching out to you for help.

So let me regress, Randy has tumors in his pancreas, femur and in his liver. Too many to count. Because his cancer was discovered so late he is considered Stage 4 and is not a surgical candidate. The doctor told us 3 years ago that he could not give us a prognosis because his kind of cancer is very slow growing, but at this time it's proving to be more aggressive than what was expected. The 2 to 20 yrs of life we were expecting has now turned into "we need to do something NOW."

This is why I'm posting this request to you, our family and friends, and I hope you share this with your friends. I do this with a heavy heart and lots of apprehension. We have never been one to ask for money, we work hard and do everything ourselves, but Cancer is a big spender and we are now in need of help to go to the next treatment.

The treatment is is called PRRT and it's not FDA approved, as of today, in the United States. This treatment has been used successfully in Europe for many years to shrink tumors that have been unaffected by other treatments. A successful trial HAS been completed in the United States as well. Thousands of patients have been patiently waiting, for over a year, for the FDA to submit their approval for this drug. And still we wait. We hope by next year it will be approved, however Randy no longer has the time to wait and only Medicare patients with Mid Gut Neuroendocrine Tumors will be able to have access to this treatment so Randy still would not be eligible..

Randy needs 4 treatments each costing $9,750. The treatments will be every 4-6 weeks in Houston. They must be paid for one week prior to the actual treatment. The total cost of his treatment will be almost $40,000, not including travel expenses and time out of work for us both. They can start treating Randy as soon as this month and we can expect to see relief hopefully by treatment 2 or 3. This treatment is not a cure, but it should keep him much more comfortable for a very long time. This may be the last option for Randy since there are no other available medications right now that he has not tried.

Each day is a blessing and I am blessed to have him in my life. We want to keep it this way. If I don't ask for help, and if we don't at least try this treatment, then I will always wonder if I did everything I could do... what would you do for your loved one?

Please share with your friends and family. Please donate anything you can. Those of you who know Randy know that he is a fighter and we will keep fighting with your help. We love you all and thank you for your help and your prayers.