Roger’s fight against cancer

My husband Roger Trippaers is a great man and wonderful father to our 9 year old son Lucas. Descending from a family of miners in Belgium and working as a coalminer himself in Waterschei, Belgium, for several years until the mine closed down, he moved to Mijas Pueblo, Spain in 1996. We met in 2006 and are together ever since. After years of trying to expand our family and various IVF treatments, in 2015 we finally welcomed our son after a very difficult pregnancy. We thought we concurred it all.

Until march 2024, after weeks of stomach pains, not eating and vomiting after every bite, Roger was diagnosed with a GIST tumour (Gastro Intestinal Stroma Tumour) at the top of his stomach. After a horrific experience at the hospital, where they offered us 3 options for surgery, option one was classic surgery, option two laparoscopic surgery and option 3 robot surgery. With option 1 and 2 my husband will certainly lose his entire stomach, only with option 3 his stomach will be saved. But there is a catch, option 3 is not covered with our insurance policy, meaningly we will have to pay 16.100 euro in advance, only for the hire of the robot during the surgery which will last ± 4 hours. The hospital is blackmailing us in paying this amount upfront, before they even will consider planning the surgery, or Roger’s stomach will be removed.

We cannot afford paying 16.100 euros for surgery and my husband does not want to lose his stomach. We are desperate, I want my husband to live and see our little son grow up. Roger needs to have the robot surgery to have a chance of living and time is not on our side. When the GIST tumour will spread there is no chance of recovery. Please have look into your heart and help me save my husband and family.

Thank you for your help!
Roger, Wendy and Lucas