I want to Live! Help Louis Bonaventura Battle Liver Cancer

Story

Hello, my name is Louis Bonaventura and I am married (going on 37 years) and have two wonderful adult kids and a fantastic future son-in-law (our third adult kid).

Up until about 1-1/2 years ago, everything was fine (as far as I knew). Then, I was diagnosed with end-stage liver cancer that I didn’t even know I had.

I never felt sick, never showed any signs of being sick or having cancer, and if I hadn’t changed my primary care doctor back then, I probably still wouldn’t know; or I would be dead from it.

This entire venture has brought me closer to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and my Heavenly Father.

I’m still shocked that this is even happening to me. I love God, my family, and my friends. I hate how this has taken over my life. I didn’t ask for cancer to invade my body. I have things I want to do in my life that I feel cancer has robbed me of many times over and over. Even though I’m tired, I’m not giving up. I asked God if you can’t get me out of this please just get me through it – so far he has and continues to do so daily.

I feel with your generous donations, it will help give me peace so I have less worry in my life while I am focusing on getting better so I can live longer.

My previous primary doctor never questioned any of my blood test results and said I was fine. My new doctor ran standard blood tests to get a baseline of my overall health. He saw something wasn’t right and ordered another blood test, and then another to confirm.

He then told me to get an MRI, which I did, and when the results of the MRI came back, he told me to go see an oncologist immediately – this man had saved my life!

So very long story short, I started treatments at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia, PA but found they were only trying to slow the progression down, not cure me. This was after 25 rounds of radiation and 5 or 6 rounds of immunotherapy that really did nothing but damage my liver even more. The Oncologist there told me the treatments were not working and gave me a couple months to a year for survival – I told him I did not accept that answer.

My wife then said let’s go to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, MD and we met my Oncologist there who told me straight up that he wanted to be aggressive and cure me! I am still seeing him and he told me the only way to cure me is to have a liver transplant. I have had 3 TACE procedures at John Hopkins and they seem to be working well along with taking my chemo pills (which really messes you up).

He sent me to Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, TX. I went down there for evaluation and they have conditionally accepted me to be listed on the transplant program list!

The problem is that I have to keep going down there for additional testing and procedures before I even get on the list officially. The trip for the 2 days of evaluation cost me over 5,000. I have to head back down there soon and that trip will cost more because I need to stay a longer period of time and cannot fly for at least 5 days after the procedure and have more tests and follow-ups in Baltimore on top of that; which means more cost and more time off from work.

All of this has drained our savings account over the last 1- 1/2 years. I can’t let it get any lower in case something happens I need to make sure my family has at least something.

The funds will go to travel expenses, doctors including specialists, keeping my mortgage and bills up to date while I am on medical leave until I can return to work, medical expenses, medications (there will be many- some will be lifetime), wound care, hospital stays, parking fees, blood tests, other tests like CT scans, MRI’s, PT scans, food, a place to stay for my wife while I’m in the hospital, etc., and things also that insurance will not cover along with copays and deductibles.

My wife suffers from her own medical issues, but manages to take me to all of my appointments, test, procedures, etc. and she cannot do that and work too.

I will be out of work for a couple months or longer; I have no idea except definitely for the first 30 days after transplant procedure.

I hate asking for it but we need help financially.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story.

#SupportLousCancerBattle

Organizers :

Louis Bonaventura is organizing this fundraiser.