Jacob's Cancer Treatments

Anyone who has ever met my brother Jacob knows just how special of a man he is, but because of his strong, quiet personality, you might not know his full story. I would like to share a small portion of it in hope that you can find it in your heart to help him during these trying times. 

In 2010 at the age of 24, Jacob was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He was living, volunteering, and teaching in Africa at the time and returned to the U.S.A. to recieve treatments at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City. After multiple surgeries over the course of a few months, including an RPLND which removed all of his lymph nodes throughout his entire abdomen, he was declared cancer free. He was left with astronomical medical bills, but he never once asked anyone for help.

Jacob then went on to celebrate his remission by bicycling across the entire width of the U.S.A. Afterwards, he spent a few months learning how to build eco-friendy earthen homes and took this newly found skill back to Africa where he helped many rural families and communities to build affordable shelters.

After returning home from Africa, Jacob fostered his passion to keep helping people by deciding to enroll back in school to become a nurse. He remembered how much of an important role the nurses played in his recovery and he wanted to have that impact on other people's lives as well. 

Along with being a full time nursing student at Rutgers University, he still found time to give back to other cancer patients and the staff at Memorial Sloan Kettering by volunteering to be a guest speaker and conselor to both new incoming hires and patients.

Unfortunately, with only two semester left into finishing his goal, Jacob felt two lumps in his throat and his battle with cancer began again.

After 7 years of remission, Jacob was diagnosed with testicular cancer once again. This time his cancer has aggressively returned and has spread throughout his body in multiple locations. This has left him in a 'high-risk' category and his treatment will be very difficult.

Jacob will be undergoing 4 rounds of chemotherapy that includes 5 days of 5.5 hours of chemotherapy followed by 16 days off per cycle. If the chemotherapy responds well, he will then have to have multiple major surgeries to cut out the remaining cancer after a few months later. During this entire time he will not be able to work and his student financial aid loans have also been stripped away from him. This has left him with previous medical bills and zero financial support at this time.

Jacob is such a prideful person that he would never ask for money, but as his brother, I am reaching out to the world to ask for any small donation that you could offer to help him during these times. I ask that if you cannot give yourself that you at least share his powerful story. 

My brother is an incredible man and there is so much more to his story that can't be written in such a small space. I ask that you support him during these times and know that any donation will be going towards a man who has spent his entire life giving to those who have needed it and is pledging to do so again as a nurse once healed.

Thank you and I wish you all nothing but love, peace, and good fortune.