Help Tsuyoshi say Sayonara to Leukemia Cancer

Tsuyoshi Kajisa was recently diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, a blood cancer, and needs financial support of at least $20,000 to cover home bills for the next 6 months. The rest will go towards hospital bills. Anything helps! 

This is the story of our dad, Tsuyoshi Kajisa, told by his children, Natsumi, Yuta, Yoshimi and Ikumi. Our Japanese parents moved to America with a missionary purpose and have stayed here for over 30 years. Our dad found his passion as a Sushi chef and our mom worked at the Japanese grocery. We were all born and raised in Tennessee and have had the blessing of growing into healthy young adults with a happy childhood. Our wonderful, funny, loving dad is now 65 years young!

 

 

 

Our dad however has type 2 diabetes and heart disease, surviving 2 strokes and needing a stent in his heart. He regularly goes to the doctor for checkups.

 

While our mom was in Japan for a month taking care of our grandfather who had kidney failure, our dad felt chest pains. We went to the ER, nothing came up in EKGs, xrays, and bloodwork. The heart doctor performed a heart catheter surgery and found minor blockages in his arteries and treated it with medical therapy, not needing another stent.

 

 

Recovery was to only take a week but our dad wasn’t able to return back to work or drive due to fatigue, constant chest pain, and dizziness. He insisted that there was still something wrong and wanted to go to another doctor for a second opinion. He even self diagnosed thinking it was pneumonia in his lungs.

 

On Monday night, January 24th, 2022, he was admitted into Vanderbilt hospital. They found abnormal cells in his blood and discovered it was cancer.

 

They call it Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Lymphosidic ), an aggressive type which affects blood in the bone marrow and can get to his brain if not treated quickly. The blood cells don’t mature as normal blood cell and get stuck in an early phase and build up. They are treating it by using a line to provide chemotherapy which are very powerful drugs. We were grateful to catch it early as acute cancer can be fatal within weeks.

 

He began chemotherapy on Wednesday night, January 26th, 2022. He will be doing chemo for 5 days, home for 2 weeks and repeat until 8 cycles are finished which would be end of June or early July if things go as planned.

The hope is the keep leukemia in complete remission and be cured from it. But it’s common to relapse and come back.

 

Although it has been quick and overwhelming to hear all this news, he decided there’s no point in feeling down or depressed. He wants to come out strong and be positive! He said,

"がんばります!" or "I'll do my best!"

 

 

Our family united together and made a schedule to make sure that someone would stay with him every night throughout his hospital stay so he can be supported.

 

On Monday, January 31st, they did a lumbar puncture for spinal tap procedure and we are happy to report that there are no cancerous cells in the spine or brain!

 

Thursday, February 10th, he caught a bacterial infection called Streptococcus, causing him to have a fever and low blood pressure. He was in the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) for a few days to treat him. The infection has been cleared now and he was able to move back to the general hospital room.

 

In week 3, his hair started to fall out though he joked about how he’s shaved his head bald before so it didn’t matter much to him.

 

As of February 14th, 2022, our dad has no bacterial infection or cancer visible in his cells, but he is being monitored and chemo treatment will resume once he is in good health. Round 2 of chemotherapy is different medications from the first round so different side effects will appear. 

 

Hearing about all the prayers and support for our family and his recovery in this long process is reassuring for him.

 

“体は元気です！頑張ります！

(I am doing well! I will do my best!)

皆様のお祈りに感謝いたします

(Thank you everyone for your prayers)

God bless you! True Parents 억만세!

 

We are also all extremely grateful to hear our family friends all wanting to help in some way, so I thought this may be the best way and we can also give updates on his battle and recovery.

 

We have confidence and faith in God that our dad will get back up on his feet no matter how many times he is knocked back down in his medical health battle. It would mean the world if you can support him emotionally and financially in order to make sure he can beat cancer and continue to get treatment. We hope he can see all of us get married, experience being a grandfather to his grandkids, visit his sister in Italy, and enjoy hobbies like golfing, bowling, and skiing. And to go back to work because he loves making sushi!

 

If you would like to help our dad, Tsuyoshi Kajisa say sayonara to his cancer and to help support the financial costs of chemo treatment, hospital stay, and home bills, anything will help! Especially within the next 6 months! 

 

Thank you!

Kajisa Family