On Sunday, March 31st, Josh was at a hockey game, watching a men’s league team play in the championship. At one point during the game Josh had gotten up and collapsed while walking. At around 9:20pm, my family and I got frantic calls from friends and acquaintances stating my brother, Josh Smith, had a 7 minute seizure, passed out, and was on the way to the hospital. My mom finally got a call at about 9:30pm from my brother who had just woken up at the hospital and was very disoriented. He was then admitted to the hospital and had some tests done, as well as a CT scan which came back normal. We found out Josh was severely anemic and was given a blood transfusion. The doctor did not believe that Josh had a seizure, he had passed out due to the anemia.

On Monday, April 1st around lunchtime, we found out Josh had Leukemia and was going to be transferred to a different hospital and be admitted into the oncology unit. Josh was diagnosed with AML (Acute Myeloid Leukemia). He has been continuing to get blood transfusions and started an intensive chemo treatment on Friday, April 6th. As of right now, we are not sure how long he will be in the hospital for. The doctor is optimistic that we caught this early.

Josh is self-employed and does not have health insurance. Due to being in the hospital, he is not able to work and pay his bills, as well as his accumulating hospital bills.