Help Jensen Fight Hepatoblastoma

This campaign is for our 9 year old nephew, Jensen.

 Jens is an extremely bright, funny and outgoing kid. He is incredibly smart and is great at lots of sports but he loves soccer and wants to be a professional one day. Goal keeping is his thing. Jensen’s loving parents are Justin and Heidi and he has two brothers, Lennox (8 years old and Jens’ wingman) and Connor, who’s just about to turn 2 years old. They are a very tightknit family.

L-R Lennox, Jensen and Connor.

 A few months ago, Jens got quite sick and had his very enlarged gall bladder removed. At the time, we never really got a good explanation as to what had gone wrong and we accepted it as one of those weird anomalies that sometimes happen. Fast forward a couple of months and there is a 14cm x 8cm tumour in his liver that has been diagnosed as a high risk hepatoblastoma. Super rare, one in a million, thanks Universe.


Jensen after recent gall bladder surgery.
 
As you can imagine, this news has been both shocking and devastating for his family and friends. Cancer wasn’t even on anyone’s radar. I guess it never is when it’s your own family.

 Jensen’s parents, Justin and Heidi, have had to significantly wind down the business to provide full time care for Jens. And they are both needed. He had his first dose of chemotherapy last week and while we are all incredibly grateful that his treatment is under way, nothing can really prepare you for the brutality of the side effects. On top of this, the poor little guy has ongoing severe pain from the tumour itself, continuously requiring heavy duty pain medication. It’s a lot for a 9 year old who just wants to play soccer.

 So, in a couple of weeks, their whole world and everything that they knew has been turned on it’s head.

 The primary focus here, of course, is to get Jensen better and put this whole ordeal as far in the past as possible. The current treatment plan is to give Jensen three rounds of chemotherapy (with three treatments per round), followed by surgical removal of the tumour and then more chemo. This whole process is predicted (as far as you can) to take around 8 months.

 Unfortunately, as Justin and Heidi have their own small business, the family’s income has come crashing to a halt. Jensen needs 24hr support during the chemotherapy which only his parents can really provide. They have accepted that their business will likely be a casualty of this horrible situation but our hope is that, with your generous support, we can contribute to Jensen’s medical bills and basic living expenses of the family (food and rent) so that they have the opportunity to be with Jens full time during this very intense period.

 This is Jensen’s fight with hepatoblastoma – thankyou for taking the time to read it. We hope that you can help him and the family on the road to recovery and allow them the time to be with their beautiful son when he needs them more than ever. Thankyou so so much for your kind support xxxxx.

Future soccer star!!