Ron Bowers

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.   Most of you may know the challenging health journey that Ron has had since December of 2020, starting with an unexpected quadruple heart bypass.  Two days later his youngest son passed away from cancer.  Ron worked hard to recover from the heart surgery at the same time his heart was broken and grieving.  In March of 2021, a scan showed a tumor on his right kidney, and a biopsy showed it to be malignant urethelial cancer (bladder cancer).  In late May of 2021 that kidney and the ureter were removed, after two frustrating months of trying to get the surgery scheduled.  It seemed as though they had gotten it all, but a course of chemotherapy and immunotherapy was prescribed just in case a rogue cell had gotten away.  Urethelial  cancer is very aggressive.  He had chemotherapy from June through September, with mild side effects, and immunotherapy once a month, to be continued until June of 2022.  Once he finished the chemotherapy, he underwent thirty sessions of radiation in October for prostate cancer, which was very slow-growing and had been monitored since 2017.  That treatment helped reduce the PSA numbers for his prostate.  In January of this year (2022), he had a scan to see where things stood concerning the urethelial cancer.  That scan showed that the chemotherapy and immunotherapy had not worked - his cancer had spread and metastasized to stage four.  There were suspicious areas in the lymph node under his left arm and deep in his abdomen, and he had developed squamous cell carcinoma on his scalp.  Biopsies showed that the squamous cell was benign, but the lymph node was malignant urethelial cancer.  His prognosis is a year, maybe a little more.  The only treatment now was a drug to help buy more time, called Padcev.  It is a chemotherapy drug that has pretty severe side effects.  So severe that it was stopped for a couple weeks to give him a bit of relief before starting it again at a lower dose.  He has an overall rash that itches both internally and externally, and is losing most of his hair now.  What is left has turned pure white.  And the fatigue is debilitating.   Food no longer tastes right.  Ron continues to work a few hours every day - his choice, and part of who he is.   He wants to be sure that everyone understands that he is doing what he chooses to do.