Help with Jorge's War on Cancer

Our friend and colleague Jorge Gao is facing a big challenge. Earlier this month he was diagnosed with stage three non-small cell lung cancer. As you can imagine this news is something none of us ever want to hear. With his family’s support, he is taking on this battle in true Jorge fashion. He has a can-do attitude coupled with his fighting spirit. 

While hospitalized Jorge underwent surgery to remove a tumor on his trachea followed by five radiation treatments. Jorge is now home and receiving outpatient care that is expected to run through December 21. Jorge will receive five radiation treatments and one chemo treatment a week. 

If anyone can beat cancer by sheer will alone it is Jorge. Some of you may not know that Jorge came to this country with his young family after the economy tanked in Argentina. At that time Jorge did not speak much English and his first job was parking cars at Duke Hospital. Jorge worked to learn English and continued to apply for design jobs. Jorge was hired by the News and Observer by a supervisor who was so impressed by his portfolio that she was willing to work around the language barrier. It wasn’t long before Jorge began to learn the language and impress his colleagues with his skills as a designer and programmer. 

The recession in 2008 hit many newspapers very hard and as the paper began to struggle there were a lot of layoffs. Jorge was among the people let go. Fortunate for the City of Raleigh Jorge came to work as a graphic designer in the Planning and Development department. It wasn’t long before he had outgrown the job and was moved to the Communications department to lead the rebranding effort. He and his team have successfully launched the city brand and provided creative marketing solutions. Jorge was also a key player in the launch of the new Raleigh website and corecon. 

I share this remarkable history to illustrate that Jorge has seen adversity before and prevailed. The battle against cancer is different and his greatest challenge yet. The journey will be hard but our friend is up for it. Armed with a loving and supporting wife, Carolina, and his children Esteban and Carolina, the fight begins. The medical expenses for his treatments will be burdensome, therefore, I have set up this GoFundMe for our friend. Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated by Jorge and his family. 

Thank you,

Sharon Felton