Please Support the Lentz Family, while Rance gets the surgery & treatment he desperately needs!!!
Rance and Angela Lentz live in Delta Jct, Alaska they are the parents of Gage (12 yrs old), Dade (9 yrs old), and their youngest Rance AKA "Rowdy" (5 yrs old). Rance has grown up in Delta Jct Alaska, where his father Mike, and mother Judy owned and operated the Clearwater Lodge.
Rance was diagnosed with Ulcerative colitis almost 17 yrs ago. Rance also has Crohn's Disease, which he watched his mother suffer with while he was growing up. Rance has been living with these two diseases for such a long time, both of them are very very painful when there are "flare-ups". "Flare-Ups" can be caused by a variety of different things like getting the flu, a sickness, sinus infection, kidney infection, stress, etc. etc. The biggest factor the influx of "Flare-Ups" for Rance has been Stress! Rances body simply doesnt react well to stress. He just gets sicker and sicker.
Rance has been faced with unimaginable stress and grief in the last 2 years. Rance lost both of his parents unexpectedly in less than a year. His mother, Judy Shindelbower/ Lentz, passed away of cancer in October 2011, after Rance and his wife, Angela had flown to South Dakota to honor his mom's wishes of coming home, so she could spend her last days with her family, she passed away less than a month after she was diagnosed. Then in May of 2012, Rance got the phone call that his father, Mike Lentz had passed away from a heart attack at his home without warning. The stress and grief of loosing his parents affected his health in torturous ways, and since then the "flare ups" have rarely gone away.
Rance has tried to help his symptoms by monitoring his diet and seeking specialized help from doctors, every time he starts to think he is getting better the diseases come back with a vengeance, most times landing Rance in the hospital or Emergency Room, at times he is admitted and other times he is sent home with medication to hopefully make it at least a little less painful but they rarely work. When I asked his wife how many days he has missed from work because of the flare-ups her answer was " I can't even count how much time from work he has missed!" This time alone he has been off of work since the beginning of December 2013. This most recent "flare" has made Rance so sick that he was barely recognizable by his children, they were scared he was going to die. Angela was forced to call an ambulance to get him to the Emergency Room over 200 miles away.
Finally Rance has gotten the answer he needs to get his life back. Soon Angela and himself will travel to Seattle and have surgery at a Swedish Hospital to remove his large intestine, and colon and have a J-pouch created. This process will be long and painful and require two separate surgeries with healing time in between. Angela must travel with Rance to Seattle thus she must take time off of work as well, as she has done numerous times before. Rance hasn't been able to work since the beginning of December and wont be able to return until after he recovers from the second surgery which will be around May.
This family needs help with the mounting medical bills, airline flights to and from Seattle, lodging, and on top of that all of the "normal" home expenses that are still needing to be paid while they are both off of work. The Lentz family is well known in the community of Delta, this family would give the shirts of their back to help others in need, they rarely ever ask for help even when they need it because they don't want to bother others.
After this surgery Rance will finally be able to live a life that is worth living, his wife and kids will not have to watch their Husband/ Dad live in unimaginable amounts of pain and anguish which they have no way of helping. All of them as a family will be able to live life as a it is meant to be without worrying about when and how severe it will be when Rance gets sick again.
