Jake Hernandez: Wildland Firefighter Cancer Battle
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Welcome to Jake’s GoFundMe page!
It is with a heavy heart that we have to announce that Jake Hernandez (my brother) has recently been diagnosed with stage 3 Non-Hodgkins lymphoma and since we have received an overwhelming amount of heartfelt messages from people asking how they can help, I decided to start this page for him to help ease the financial burdens that this process will put on him. Jake’s treatment will include chemotherapy, which will start next week on 8/31/20 (and possibly radiation and immunotherapy). His current plan with his medical providers is to start with 4 rounds of chemotherapy lasting through the end of the year and then assess the prognosis at that point. So far Jake has undergone one surgery and is scheduled for another this Friday 8/28 and will begin chemotherapy the following Monday.
Jake is a Wildland Firefighter who works for the US Forest Service on the Lassen Hotshots. He has fought fire for the last ten years all around the nation, working out of the Lassen National Forest. Unfortunately, this news impacted him during the middle of the fire season causing him to miss the rest of the year. Jake spends most of his time enjoying the outdoors and is devastated being recently debilitated from doing what he loves most, fighting fire.
For those of you who know Jake, you know that he is a very social person with many friends. His favorite activity other than being in the outdoors is spending quality time with the people he loves. This makes the timing of this treatment very troubling. With Covid-19 being at the state it is currently, this will allow for limited visitors and little to none, in person social interaction for the duration of the treatment as his blood count will be too low to risk infection.
He has been dealt a very tough hand - as a 27-year old male, chemotherapy threatens to destroy your reproductive cells, so in hope to have children one day, Semen Cryopreservation (sperm banking) is essential to freeze the sperm until post-chemotherapy/radiation. While much of medical costs around cancer/chemo are covered by insurance, sperm banking is not. He has applied to and been granted discounted support through the Livestrong Fertility Center; however this process will still demand a significant financial burden for Cryopreservation.
However, he has an extremely resilient attitude and is ready to take this undesired challenge head on! So let’s rally behind him and give him our support! We will be posting weekly updates on the treatment and the progress of beating this awful disease.
Thank you for taking the time to help.
It is with a heavy heart that we have to announce that Jake Hernandez (my brother) has recently been diagnosed with stage 3 Non-Hodgkins lymphoma and since we have received an overwhelming amount of heartfelt messages from people asking how they can help, I decided to start this page for him to help ease the financial burdens that this process will put on him. Jake’s treatment will include chemotherapy, which will start next week on 8/31/20 (and possibly radiation and immunotherapy). His current plan with his medical providers is to start with 4 rounds of chemotherapy lasting through the end of the year and then assess the prognosis at that point. So far Jake has undergone one surgery and is scheduled for another this Friday 8/28 and will begin chemotherapy the following Monday.
Jake is a Wildland Firefighter who works for the US Forest Service on the Lassen Hotshots. He has fought fire for the last ten years all around the nation, working out of the Lassen National Forest. Unfortunately, this news impacted him during the middle of the fire season causing him to miss the rest of the year. Jake spends most of his time enjoying the outdoors and is devastated being recently debilitated from doing what he loves most, fighting fire.
For those of you who know Jake, you know that he is a very social person with many friends. His favorite activity other than being in the outdoors is spending quality time with the people he loves. This makes the timing of this treatment very troubling. With Covid-19 being at the state it is currently, this will allow for limited visitors and little to none, in person social interaction for the duration of the treatment as his blood count will be too low to risk infection.
He has been dealt a very tough hand - as a 27-year old male, chemotherapy threatens to destroy your reproductive cells, so in hope to have children one day, Semen Cryopreservation (sperm banking) is essential to freeze the sperm until post-chemotherapy/radiation. While much of medical costs around cancer/chemo are covered by insurance, sperm banking is not. He has applied to and been granted discounted support through the Livestrong Fertility Center; however this process will still demand a significant financial burden for Cryopreservation.
However, he has an extremely resilient attitude and is ready to take this undesired challenge head on! So let’s rally behind him and give him our support! We will be posting weekly updates on the treatment and the progress of beating this awful disease.
Thank you for taking the time to help.
Organiser and beneficiary
Wendy Hernandez
Organiser
Susanville, CA
Jacob Hernandez
Beneficiary