Jeremiah's Cancer Recovery

In January 2016, I returned to what I thought would be the last semester of my MFA studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Upon completing my studies, I intended to begin teaching. I hope to aid others in their pursuit of a personal language that would further help them express and articulate themselves visually. However, a storm was brewing inside of me, for lack of a better term, that would see these plans placed on hold while I began a fight with cancer.

On a beautiful day in late March, while en route to the school, I had a full-blown, tonic-clonic seizure. This particular day, which had started as casually and as usual as ever, was just the beginning of a series of events that would drastically change my life. In the hospital, while being prepped for various tests, I had another seizure. I knew then that something was drastically wrong. On some instinctual, perhaps even a primal level, I understood things had shifted inside of me & that something had reached a critical point and needed to be dealt with urgently.

I would spend the next few days in the hospital undergoing numerous tests to determine what precisely the culprit was, where it originated, and what the plan of action would be. Metastatic lesions were discovered in my lungs and brain after various scans and examinations. The origin, as I would come to understand, was testicular cancer.

I was diagnosed with stage IIIC testicular cancer on April 1, 2016.

One night, while lying in the hospital, unable to sleep, I started thinking about my life. The thoughts, cloudy from various medications, hazy from the emotional trauma, and scrambled from trying to understand all that had come to pass over such a short period, were everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. How would I tell my family? How would chemotherapy be? How could it be that I was so close to completing my MFA and yet so far away? How was it that, even while living such a healthy lifestyle, I had developed cancer? How long had it been there? How long had it been spreading?

The doctors in Chicago were pushing for immediate treatment. However, I was determined to return home to New England, where I felt like I had a more extensive support network consisting of family and friends.

Three days after being discharged from the hospital, I flew back to Maine. Less than a week later, I began chemotherapy treatment.

Though I have the endless support of my family and many good friends, for which I am beyond blessed, I have an ever-increasing stack of medical bills and personal expenses, such as food, transportation costs, etc., that add stress to an already overwhelming situation. I am in the process of applying for social security (disability) benefits. This process is tedious, and trying to do so through a chemotherapy-induced mental haze, not to mention the emotional exhaustion that is synonymous with any illness, makes it close to impossible.

I am seeking financial assistance to defray some (if not all) of the debt thus far accrued from this life-changing course of events.