EDIT: 10/7/2025:

I've decided to wind this thing down, having more than succeeded in my goal. I have everything I need and so I've turned off donations, but I'm leaving this page up a bit longer just to publicly thank everyone who donated and helped me find the road out of this incredibly dark time in my life. None of these people had to do this but they did and I'll never forget it; if you got here after I posted this, thank you for even clicking on the link.

Love you all,

-Jack

P.S. If you find a hard lump under your skin that wasn't there a month ago, go to the doctor and make them give you an MRI, don't let them tell you it's probably nothing, don't let them tell you to wait and see if it goes away, advocate for yourself until you're sure that you're either safe or in good hands, and if you don't feel good about the way a doctor is handling your case remember that you always have the right to a second opinion; it might not change your diagnosis but feeling like you're in good hands will make the whole thing a lot less scary.

In putting together a bio for this, I’ve spent a lot of time agonizing over how much detail to get into. I never seriously imagined myself doing something like this in the first place, but I think if it ever did cross my mind, I pictured something that would be a lot easier to talk about openly. As objectively awful as it was, what actually happened to me this summer was also something that’s so weird and uncomfortable to talk about that I seriously considered never revealing the details to anyone outside my smallest innermost circle of family and friends. In the end I changed my mind precisely because of that discomfort and weirdness- it’s incredibly unlikely (about 1 in 100,000) that anyone else I know will ever end up in the same boat, but this year proved to me that it’s not impossible. It’s my hope that by talking about it openly I can make it a little less lonely for anyone else who might find themselves going through such a terrifying and painful ordeal, and to break the ice; to make it something that’s a little easier to talk about, both for the person going through it and for the people trying to be there for them.

At some point in the spring of 2025 I discovered a small hard lump on the head of my penis. Yes, that’s right, that’s where this is going. My initial visits to my primary care doctor and a urologist suggested a number of possible causes but no particular cause for alarm. A few weeks later it had not gone away as predicted, but rather grown slightly larger, and so I scheduled an ultrasound, which revealed what was described as a mass or a lesion at the time. After consulting with another urologist, a surgery was scheduled initially for August to determine exactly what this mass was (at the time I was told this was the only way) and potentially remove it, but soon afterwards the pace of its growth began to accelerate; before long it became visible and increasingly uncomfortable.

At this point my urologist started to become more concerned and had the surgery moved forward to June. I was pretty freaked out but the worst case scenario seemed so bizarre and improbable that I was still able to tell myself it couldn’t be anything all that serious. A few weeks before my first surgery, my doctor ordered what was supposedly a supplementary MRI- Again, I had been told that surgery was the only path to a diagnosis. In the first week of June I had the MRI, and the next day when the report arrived on my healthcare portal I saw the first words that hinted at what was to come- “malignant”, and “squamous carcinoma.” Two days later I went in to see the doctor and I was told bluntly that I had penile cancer- As it turned out, surgery was not in fact the only means of diagnosing the nature of the mass.

At the time I was too overwhelmed to think about that much, but I’ve come to realize that my treatment was most likely delayed by more than a month by that doctor’s failure to order an MRI earlier. I try not to second guess doctors- the majority of the professionals who helped me through this nightmare were fantastic and I couldn’t thank them enough for the care they provided me, but as you’ll see, that delay was likely a significant contributor to how life-changing and traumatic my cancer ended up being, in addition to drawing the whole thing out even longer. Maybe I'll overcome the bitterness someday but I'll probably never understand why it happened that way.

In the two weeks between my diagnosis and first surgery, as if this all wasn’t enough already, chafing from a hike turned into a pretty gruesome and incredibly painful infection at the site of the tumor, and by the time the surgery rolled around I was in shambles mentally. The surgery happened as planned and the infection was treated at the same time, at least removing one source of misery, but the doctors were unable to remove the tumor at that time. I woke up with a catheter inserted in my urethra draining to a plastic bag, which would remain in place until after the next surgery. That part honestly wasn’t as bad as it sounds- it’s kinda nice not to have to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night- the part where it gets taken out (kinda just yanked out really) however, I cannot recommend.

Over the next two weeks I received daily visits from home care nurses to change my bandages, which in the first few days was among the most painful things I’ve ever experienced; I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. The next week, in the thick of it, whacked out on various medications and thinking “how could this get any worse”, I went for a follow up appointment. By now I was seeing a new doctor, recommended by a friend with a personal connection. This was one of the best decisions I made throughout all of this; Dr. McGovern is a really great guy and an even better doctor, and I couldn’t be more grateful to have him on my team.

Unfortunately, Dr. McGovern, along with several wonderful oncologists from MGH, had the grim task of laying out the reality of my situation and my options. Had I decided to go the route of radiation and chemotherapy, I would have been in for months of misery, pain and sickness, but most crucially, there was no way to be sure that it would completely rid me of the cancer. Based on the best available science and the experience of other patients, there was only one real option. I will never forget how I deflated and slumped over in that chair in Frank’s office, lost the capacity for words, and just stared at the floor sobbing, after he told me that the only viable treatment for my cancer was a partial penectomy, or in more common terms, an amputation of as much of my penis as was necessary to completely remove the cancer.

The next month or so was a blur and I remember very little of it, but shortly after that appointment the surgery was scheduled and early in the morning on July 3rd, 2025, my father drove me to Mass General Hospital for the procedure. There isn’t all that much to say about my recovery. I spent the next month basically sitting on my couch, taking a handful of pills several times a day, and otherwise mostly dissociating and watching TV. I can’t give enough credit to Dr. McGovern and the rest of my team at MGH; before the surgery, in the rare moments when I allowed myself to speculate, I imagined that I would be in far more pain for far longer. Unfortunately the fact remains that I had between half and a third of my penis removed. Believe it or not this is actually pretty lucky; a lot of men who develop penile cancer end up needing a complete penectomy, but as you can imagine this provides small consolation. Several months later I’ve resumed my normal activities for the most part, but I still see that freaky looking stump, spiked with the ends of the stitches as they slowly dissolve and are pushed out of my body, every time I go to the bathroom or undress. The stitches will be gone someday and I may even regain full function, but I will live the rest of my life with the partial amputation of the most sensitive part of my body.

Through the worst months of this summer, in order to keep getting out of bed, I had to put some things entirely out of my mind, but the reality is that untreated, in time, what I had would have almost certainly been fatal. I was lucky enough to go through this ordeal with decent health insurance, but there’s a lot that health insurance doesn’t cover. Between several sizable copays for surgery, medical supplies I had to purchase out of pocket, transportation during the several months when I was unable to drive, and general living expenses while I’ve been out of work, I am in quite a lot of debt.

[EDIT 9/27: I was going to wind this down this weekend but in an oncology meeting yesterday I was told that there's a decent chance I'm gonna need to undergo a lymph node dissection, a surgical procedure which, while not terribly invasive, can be complicated and would require another recovery period. At this time I have no reason to believe the the cancer is back, but in light of this potential complication to my circumstances I'm gonna leave it up one more week to make the most of it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who's donated so far.]

I’m making this at the suggestion of several friends because frankly I am deep in a hole, both financially and psychologically, and I just cannot deal with both at the same time. Crazy as it sounds, in some ways I'm really lucky for how this turned out; I barely scratched the surface of how complicated and expensive cancer treatment can get, but unfortunately the baseline is about 7 feet deep and I'm only 6'2". So, relatively speaking, I don't need much, I'm basically looking to pay off my debts, cover future care-related expenses and generally achieve a level of stability which will allow me to fully focus on recovery. As it stands, even after I return to work in a few weeks, I’m not gonna be making nearly enough to get where I need to be.

Those of you who’ve known me long enough know that I’ve already been through a lot in my life and picked myself up again after some pretty harrowing experiences, life or death ones in a few cases, but this one has pushed me far beyond the boundaries of what I’m capable of handling on my own. Anything you can contribute will help. Thanks for reading all of this, sincerely. If you have any questions feel free to message me on here or via social media.

-Jack