Bart’s Story

Site created on December 9, 2022

Welcome my Dads website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place.  


The journey of fighting the kidney mass. Dad started to have pain in his stomach area the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  The tough Farmer he is didn’t say a word to his family.  Instead he enjoyed watching the Vikings win and playing canasta. 


The Friday after Thanksgiving is when he finally decided to say something. The initial thought was to go into urgent care until Kelly convinced them to go to the ER. The rest of us siblings were informed when he was in the ER. During the time there the healthcare team decided to perform a CT of the abdomen. The news was he has a mass on his right kidney suspicious for right renal cell carcinoma.  The ER team recommended him to see a urologist.  We got on the phone right away the following Monday to schedule an appointment. Mom got him into Sioux Falls and I(Rebecca) got him into Mayo Clinic. 


The urologist in Sioux Fall was a quick visit letting us know that most likely this mass is right renal cell carcinoma and they need to know if the mass is going in the vein.  If the mass is going up the vein then Dad would need to go to Mayo Clinic. Dad at this point was still in a lot of pain so the option to relieve the pain was to try to place a stent in the vein in the kidney to open it back up. They were unsure at that point what was making that vessel closed. We choose to get that done right away which was last Thursday. A different doctor performed that procedure and let us know it was really difficult to get the wire up there, the mass is large and said we need to have a plan in place. We decided to not do any further testing in Sioux Falls and wait for our appointments in Rochester. 


Next is our journey in Rochester…

Newest Update

Journal entry by Rebecca Nash

Happy Sunday everyone!  We have had people ask on how Dad is doing. Sorry I haven’t put an update on for a while. After seeing the Oncologist in Sioux Falls a while back Dr. Higgins decided to start Dad on treatments right away. So he is on an oral medication that he takes daily and then he goes in once a month for immunotherapy injections. He is followed closely by the Oncologist.  Dad is doing really well with the treatments. He is enjoying the things he likes to do. He goes to his grandkids sporting games, golf’s, and hangs out with his family and friends. Dad had a CT about a month ago to look at his pancreas and they noted his pancreas looked better and the nodules on the lungs appeared liked they decreased in size.  He will have another CT coming up this month just to look at those nodules on his lungs.  We hope they are decreasing in size. 🙏🏻  

We truly appreciate the love and support we are still getting during Dads cancer treatments. It’s a new daily life changing event for both Dad and Mom. Making sure they get to all the appointments. Mom has been doing well and she continues to take care of Dad each and everyday. You truly see the Love they have for each other.

I will send a message after Dads next CT to give an update about the nodules on his lungs. 

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