Richard’s Fight Against Colon Cancer

His story began a little more than 2 years ago…  In December 2016, Richard was diagnosed with Stage IV Colon Cancer at the age of 46 that metastasized to his liver.  He has been battling Colon/Rectal Cancer since then, and has endured numerous surgeries that included the removal of the tumor, removal of a foot of colon, and radiation.  Since April 2017, Richard has been through 30 rounds of Chemotherapy and the cancer has been at bay in the liver.  However the treatments has taking a toll on his body and Richard noticed that it was becoming harder to walk and he was much more fatigued earlier in the day.  So in November 2018, the oncologist wanted to provide a relatively new treatment called radioembolization that sends radioactive microspheres directly into the tumors located in the liver to give him a break from the chemotherapy treatments.  However, before he was able to receive this treatment, he would need to come off chemo treatments for a month to see which blood vessels were feeding the largest tumors.  After 5 weeks of being off chemotherapy, the spheres were administered into his liver.  Richard had to wait another month for the PET scan to reveal whether or not it worked.  As the results of the scan came back, Richard found out it was a bitter/sweet prognosis.  The results identified that it did work on the tumors treated but other tumors emerged much larger than before due to the result of being off chemotherapy for nearly 6 weeks.

Since then, Richard has been through 6 more rounds of chemotherapy, and his body has been responding well up until January of this year.  The oncologist changed his chemotherapy treatments due to his health and fatigue, however, the treatments are much worse on him than before.  This is pretty much his last line of defense on this terrible disease as it relates to chemotherapy treatments.  He has fought hard and he doesn’t have any intentions of giving up, so he can be here for his wife and kids that mean so much to him.  Richard started researching other alternatives outside of chemotherapy treatments, and found an organization in California that provides treatments called the Gerson Immunotherapy.  This is an alternative medicine program that encompasses other medicines to treat and/or cure the cancer.  However, the costs of this treatment is not covered with his insurance and it is estimated to cost roughly $35,000 outside the travel costs and hotel stay for the 4 weeks he is there.  Richard feels very optimistic that it will help in his fight against colon cancer, and allow him to be with his family for many more years.

Please consider donating financially whatever you are able to provide… and just know, for each donation made, that you are truly helping a family, a family that loves one another, a family that is struggling in the moment, and that needs your help.

You can donate by sending a check to:

Bethel Baptist Church
1301 Hartselle, AL 35640
(Write the check out to Bethel Baptist Church, with Richard Cliett on the memo line)

OR

You can give through our “Facebook Fundraiser” by click on the image below!