Help Alex Kass in his Fight Against Cancer!

On the morning of Tuesday, November 5th, Alex was getting ready to assist a stage combat class at Brooklyn College when he started coughing up blood. After months of a nasty cough, and weeks of chest pains, this was the final straw. He went straight to Urgent Care, who insisted he go directly to the Emergency Room. Concerning levels in his blood tests led to a CT Scan revealing he had a sizeable mass in his chest, approximately 6.5 x 4.5 x 5.5 inches. This mass was creating pressure inside his chest cavity and compressing his left lung. This explained the chest pain, shortness of breath, and now the coughing up blood that he'd been experiencing, and meant that this thing was still growing and growing very fast.

We were directed to specialist after specialist, who each ran more scans and blood tests, to check on his lung function, heart function, and overall health. Unfortunately every doctor said the same thing: "we can't move forward until we do a biopsy". Finally a biopsy was scheduled and we just had to wait and hope. On Monday, November 18th we got the word: it was cancer.

Alex was diagnosed with Stage 2 Primary Mediastinal Large B-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (DLBCL). Essentially what that means is that he has a very aggressive cancer in his white blood cells. The bad news is that this is an aggressive cancer, but the good news is that it hasn't spread yet to other organs or parts of the body.

Because we caught it early enough, the care team expects Alex's cancer to respond well to chemotherapy. However, the downside is that this aggressive cancer requires an equally aggressive course of action. He has to do a very long and intense treatment, and it has to begin right away to stop the mass from continuing to grow. They are planning an 18-week treatment, starting on Monday, December 2nd and going all the way into April of 2025. Not only will it be intense and debilitating at times, but his weakened immune system will prevent him from being able to work during this time.

His team at Chelsea Piers, where he's currently a Front Desk Manager, has been wonderful in helping him get set up with a medical leave, ensuring his job security through this process. Our care manager with NYU Langone is also doing everything they can to help us manage what will be an incredibly exhausting and expensive five months. This is where we need your help.

In the last 2.5 weeks, we've already accumulated $10,000 in medical bills just to see specialists and conduct the procedures to get diagnosed. And yes, this is after insurance. We know that the chemotherapy is going to be even more expensive, especially because they're having to take such an aggressive approach. We don't know how much in total the chemotherapy will cost; we're expecting close to $30,000 if we're lucky, but in truth it could be a whole lot more. This doesn't include the additional blood tests and scans they will do throughout the treatment to monitor his progress, which will easily add up to another $10,000+ as we go on.

All in all, we know this is going to be a very expensive treatment. On top of that, we're anticipating about $14,000 in lost wages while Alex has to take time off work, and while we're looking into every assistance program available to us, the truth is that we'll be struggling.

I have my full-time job, and am lucky enough to work remotely, which allows me to be Alex's caregiver throughout this process. But as you all know, New York is an expensive place and between the cost of transportation to get to these appointments and the medications he's already been prescribed, the costs are adding up very quickly. That on top of the day-to-day expenses of rent, food, bills, utilities, and everything else.

We moved to New York to pursue Alex's dream of being an actor, stunt performer, and fight coordinator -- at the very core Alex is a performer and he loves this more than anything. The thought that he might not be able to pursue this anymore was one of the hardest parts of being diagnosed.

Again to the happy news: this treatment, as hard as it's going to be, has a 93-95% expected success rate. As long as his cancer responds the way our care team expects it to, he should have a full recovery and high chances of being cured completely. This is what we're hoping for, and this is what we're working towards.

What we're asking for is your help so that during treatment Alex's focus can be on just getting through it and getting better, and when he makes it through, he won't be debilitatingly bogged down with medical debt and credit card debt accrued through this time.

Alex is only 28 years old -- this diagnosis comes just 3 weeks before his 29th birthday. The last thing we expected was for him to get cancer -- he doesn't drink or smoke or do drugs! The guy is the king of corny jokes and tries his best to always do the right thing. To put it bluntly: it just isn't fair. It's an unavoidable fact that he'll have to go through this treatment, but what we're trying to avoid is adding the stress and anxiety of massive debt on top of this already horrible situation.

We know that this is a huge amount of money and it feels daunting at this point, but we're just asking you to offer what you can. If you have a little you can give, every single dollar helps, truly. And if you can share this with your other friends and family and coworkers, we're hoping we can raise enough to make this tough situation easier.

Anything you can do would mean the world to us while we're navigating this scary unknown, and we're so grateful for everyone who's already offered us help. Thank you for your help and thank you for loving Alex -- he deserves it all!