I’m 28 years old, born and raised in South Philly. I went to Kutztown University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 2019 with a bachelor’s in communication design. These days I work on the user experience team at JPMorgan Chase.
My cancer journey began in late 2021 when I began experiencing feelings of sickness, most often after eating. One night in February 2022, however, it became clear food was not the issue.
I’m the kind of guy who can sleep anytime, anywhere, so when the pain in my abdomen got so bad that I couldn’t sleep, I finally told my wife I needed to go to the ER. The doctors there did some testing and scans, but all they found was an infection, so they gave me an IV and antibiotics. After a few days, when I felt better, they sent me home.
I’ve been blessed with good health my entire life and retired in 2016 from a career in manufacturing and sales management. During my retirement, I went in a different direction and wrote two novels.
In 2021, I started having pain in my left leg. I visited my family doctor, and at first we thought it might be a deep vein thrombosis. When we ruled that out, I saw a vascular doctor in case it might be varicose veins. That doctor had me get an MRI, and after those results came back, I had to get a biopsy. That’s when the doctors confirmed that I had a stage IV tumor in my leg.
Early in 2019, I started to experience an uncomfortable feeling whenever I sat down on a hard surface. Little things like riding my bike or just resting on a bench started to hurt a little. At first, it wasn’t that bad, so I just ignored it and hoped it would go away on its own.
