Support Justin's Fight Against Cancer and Paralysis

On Thursday, March 20th, my brother, Justin, had some numbness and tingling in his legs.

Within a couple of hours, he was paralyzed from the chest down. Within a couple more hours, he was in surgery to remove a large tumor from his spine. By late that night, we got the news from his neurosurgeon that Justin has cancer that has metastasized throughout his body, as well as the same heart condition as me (obstructive HCM), and we were warned he may never walk again. All of this happened in less than 24 hours.

Since then, Justin has been in the hospital recovering from his surgery. His legs are getting stronger every day, but he will need a couple of months of intense rehabilitation before he will walk again. We are waiting on pathology results still to know what kind of cancer he has, and then after a few more weeks of recovering from surgery, he can start chemotherapy and radiation.

If you know our family, you know this isn't our first rodeo with hospitals. My brother was born with Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, which is a rare immune disorder that presented primarily as an inability for his blood to clot or for his body to fight off any infections whatsoever. The doctors told our mom, who was 23 at the time with 2 young children, that Justin wouldn't live past the age of 5. He went through chemotherapy, radiation, and ultimately had a life-saving bone marrow transplant. He then followed up with St. Jude's Children's Hospital until he was cleared as healthy when he was 18. But then it was my turn...

When I was 17, I was diagnosed with Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardiomyopathy. I flew to Boston so I could have my second open-heart surgery at Tufts. Our mother supported me through all of this, never left my bedside, and Justin was there too. He has always been our rock through every hardship.

And here we are again... Justin couldn't let me win. When he came out of surgery, he told me, "I see your heart condition and I raise you cancer! Ha!" We are great at using humor to cope with truly awful situations. One of the oncologists came into Justin's room one day and told us what an amazing family we are because we're always laughing and joking around when she comes in. We've been through so much as a family, but we always stick together. We will get through this together too, just like we always do!!

That being said, Justin lives with our mom while he's going back to school for game programming and development and works at Publix as an overnight stocker. He of course can't work right now, especially not such a physically demanding job, and he has to pause his classes while he takes some time to recover. This leaves our mother without any help with rent or bills, and she's also having to take time off from work in order to be there in the hospital with him. So we are asking for donations to help cover the cost of his medical bills as well as to help support our mother while she pauses everything to be there by one of her children's hospital beds for the third time.

These past few days have been so intense. We're all just trying to process having to go through something like this again, let alone our worry for Justin. But like I said, we are an incredibly strong family, and we will always stick together to make it through the challenges we face. We just need a little community support to help us do it! Please donate if you can, and share to everyone and everywhere. We really appreciate it!!