Hope in the Face of Stage IV Cancer
By Stephanie Irvine
When a loved one is diagnosed with the devastating news of cancer, everyone rallies together.
Fundraisers are held, donations come in and prayers are sent. In the face of it all, everyone is filled with hope and strength.
Then it comes time for the big fight. As months on the calendar flip past, so do rounds of chemotherapy — for Joliet’s 27-year-old Devin Mulcahy, it’s already been six rounds to fight his Stage IV adenocarcinoma, an aggressive colon cancer that metastasized to his liver and lungs.
He started chemotherapy in January, and it’s been non-stop treatment. Given his young age, his doctors are throwing everything they can at it.
“His oncologist said at the very beginning that because of his age, she wants to attack it as aggressively as she can with a curative approach. No guarantees, but their plan is to hit it very aggressively,” said Mulcahy’s sister, Amanda Wozniak.
“His oncologist is amazing — Dr. Meena Sadaps from Rush and MD Anderson,” his mom, Linda Berg added. She credits Sadaps with getting him access to the best medical care.
Doctors believe Mulcahy’s cancer is likely a result of a genetic condition, Familial Adenomatous Polyposis (FAP). The condition is rare and causes hundreds of polyps to start growing, and over time, they change, silently growing and transforming unbeknownst to the person until the sheer volume of tumors starts to cause pain — often when it’s already turned into late-stage cancer, which was Mulcahy’s case.
The condition starts at a young age and has a 100 percent chance of turning into cancer if left untreated by the age of 40. If it were a known condition, there are tests that could have detected and treated it early, but that’s often not what happens.
“We’d never heard of it,” Berg said, and so, the cancer progressed.
Normal and happy
He had been a normal, happy 25-year-old, working at O’Reilly Auto Parts, enjoying driving his Ford Raptor until abdominal pain made him drive to the emergency room. At first, doctors thought it was his gallbladder. Then they realized his abdomen was riddled with tumors.
“Devin is really special, and he’s so kind,” Wozniak said of her little brother.
She’s been grappling with showing him support while feeling the heaviness of his diagnosis. They’re all feeling the gravity of the situation while trying to stay positive.
“A few weeks ago, he woke up at 1 a.m. having abdominal pain. With cancer, you can’t wait and see. So we had to go to the emergency room. It’s horrible,” Berg said.
“As his mother, I can’t breathe,” Berg said of moments that are hard — but it’s all hard with cancer.”
Currently, Mulcahy is at home recovering from surgery that removed two large parts of his liver and preparing for another surgery that will remove his colon and part of his rectum.
That surgery brought him back to the hospital because he had a reaction to the blood thinners he was on to prevent blood clots that can occur after abdominal surgery. Once he recovers, he’ll have the other surgery.
“The last time they looked at it, the cancer didn’t hit that part of the rectum yet. So that’s why they had to do the liver first. They said that’s what would kill him if he didn’t do that first,” Berg said.
Help drying up
As Mulcahy continues fighting for his life, everyone outside the family has gone on with theirs. It’s just how the world works. It’s taxing to fight cancer.
“At first, people will say hey, it’s this great family, let’s help, but no one is donating anymore. We’re trying to figure something else out. We had the fundraiser, we have a GoFundMe, but it’s like it’s frozen,” Berg said of the financial burden.
Berg and Wozniak were emphatically grateful for the donations they’ve received so far, including a $500 donation from Roc City Bar & Grill and another big one from Fair Oaks, among many others they say all add up.
Despite it, Berg is struggling. She normally works two jobs to make ends meet. During the day, she’s in healthcare, and in the evening and on weekends, she works as a server at Metro Bar & Grill.
“One of the biggest things I’m noticing is the amount of time that she’s taking off of work,” Wozniak said, as one week of recovery turns into two with complications.
“For chemo, he’s there for 10 hours, he comes home connected to a pump for two days, and then we go back, it gets disconnected, which is an entire day as well,” Wozniak said.
When he gets home, he’s exhausted, and he needs to be monitored, so Mulcahy’s mom cares for him while he’s at home. He needs help moving around, getting medications administered orally and through an IV.
Wozniak said he’s feeling all the effects of chemotherapy, including exhaustion, hair loss, a loss of appetite, and neuropathy that makes him so sensitive to cold, he can’t be in front of an open refrigerator door.
A bright spot for Devin is that he’s getting his hair back since he’s been off chemo for surgery, but in a surprise, jet black — a new color for him. Before cancer, he had sandy brown hair.
“He doesn’t care, he’s just happy to have hair back,” Berg said.
Those bright moments are what keep them all going — that and a whole lot of prayers.
“We appreciate all the prayers,” Wozniak said, with Berg adding, “We’ve given this to God.”
Their hope and faith is inspiring in the face of hardship.
Berg’s home, which she worked hard to pay off and own, is now at risk of foreclosure for back taxes.
She was hesitant to reveal the hardship because she said it didn’t have to do with her son, though it very much does. It’s the roof over his head, and it just adds more stress to an already difficult time, taking away the ability to ever get ahead.
More than anything, more than the house, Berg just wants her son to get better.
“What makes it so rough is that I’ve been in the medical field for over 43 years, and there’s not one thing I can do to help my son. And to see your child go through all this, the weight loss, the look, the personality changes, you can just see it in him, but he stays so strong. I don’t know how he does it,” Berg said.
Despite the diagnosis and battle, they still say they’re “lucky,” calling themselves “fortunate” that insurance is covering most of his treatments.
But it doesn’t cover the time off work, the $500 in parking it costs just to be with him while he’s at the hospital for extended stays, fuel to get downtown from their house in Joliet/Plainfield, and all the other expenses insurance doesn’t cover.
Those are the costs people don’t realize add up so quickly, they explained.
“It’s hard because I normally work,” Berg said again.
The family is hoping for continued prayers and, if anyone is compelled, a little financial help to create another bright spot.
Those willing and able to donate to the GoFundMe set up for Devin’s care can do so at https://gofund.me/95d8d0d52.
