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jasongornak

@jasongornak

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Took my better half on a getaway for her birthday. Love you, babe! #BaHaBa taken in Bar Harbor, Maine by @jasongornak

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2 months ago

Celebrated Father Time on Grandfather Mountain taken in Grandfather Mountain, NC by @jasongornak

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2 years ago

Thank you @meckcountymedsociety @joyfulleewritten @dr.paviol for featuring my story in this months journal. April is Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Month and it’s a good reminder to get routine physicals and to visit your dentist every 6 months. by @jasongornak

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4 years ago

Duncan celebrated his first birthday this weekend at @dogworlddogpark and had the time of his life. Let’s hope year two is a lot less destructive for the boy! by @jasongornak

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4 years ago

Today, 7/31/22, marks two years since my diagnosis and the start of an absolutely insane journey. I can’t and won’t try to put it all into an IG post but it’s been a wild 24 months. Five surgeries, 63 rounds of radiation, three different types of chemo combinations which in itself almost took me out - I am here and I’m beyond thankful to everyone who has reached out, sent a text, and kept me in your prayers over the last two years. I am thankful for my family and friends who never stopped believing after each failed treatment and each bad report that God was going to make a way. I am thankful for @kelligornak who never broke faith and kept my faith alive on the strength of her own. When oncologists said they wouldn’t do anything else, when surgeons said they couldn’t cut this thing out of me after it kept growing back, and when we were staying in a hospital getting visits from chaplains - You never wavered on what you were told. I love you guys and I am forever thankful! by @jasongornak

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4 years ago

May 15th, 2021
One year ago today I decided to accept forgiveness of my sins and dedicate whatever time I had left in this world to Christ through baptism. As you can see in the picture your boy wasn’t doing too well.. I was going through intense chemo treatments that weren’t working and had a lot on my mind and my heart. I am so thankful that my brother @lito_pinilla was able to be in that tank with me. Your prayer and the things you said that day will stick with me forever. You said that I showed you what real strength looks like, but you showed me hope through prayer by showing up at 5AM to the lobby of a hospital the morning of one of my surgeries to pray with me before going in. You’re as real as they get. Thank you @elevationchurch for allowing this day to happen and for the prayers from the church community. I have been crucified with Christ: and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God - Galatians 2:20 by @jasongornak

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4 years ago

A Legend in the making, Duncan by @jasongornak

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5 years ago

CHEMOTHERAPY: I was given Cisplatin chemotherapy once a week for 7 weeks. I was told by my oncologist that Cisplatin was one of the most harshly tolerated chemo therapeutics out there, but luckily I tolerated it pretty well throughout the entire treatment and rarely felt sick. Major shoutout to anti nausea drugs for that 🤙. They would stick my arm with an IV, and push fluids in me for two hours, then push the Cisplatin for close to another two hours, then another hour of fluids.. so for almost 5 hours I’d sit back and listen to music or a podcast and usually pass out for most of the treatment. #dripforthedrip #headandneckcancer #chemotherapy #cisplatin #squamouscellcarcinoma #tonguecancer #keepshowingup @dukecancerinstitute taken in Duke Cancer Institute by @jasongornak

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6 years ago

RADIATION: So this part sucked the most, for a lot of reasons. First, I’m claustrophobic as hell and the PET scan alone sucked being in a tube for 20 minutes. This was next level. For head and neck radiation the dosages have to be delivered precisely each time because of how damaging it is to the tissue. So they form fit a mask to your head and neck area and bolt it down to a table to where you physically can’t move your head at all. For 7 weeks and 33 treatments, I went to a mental space I didn’t know existed to get through this shit for the 12 minutes each treatment lasted. I am very comfortable and used to pushing my body to be able to do difficult things and I feel like a lot of the physical training I’ve done definitely helped me mentally get through a lot of this cancer battle, but this one was an accomplishment for me. Aside from that, Radiation is tough. You can’t feel anything during the treatment, but the effects are brutal. After a week, my taste buds were burnt off. After 2-3 weeks my beard and the hair on the back of my head fell out at the entry/exit areas of the radiation which may or may not grow back. Into week 4 things start to really get fun with the open sores and blisters inside your mouth, tongue and neck. Your mouth is dry 24/7 because the salivary glands get burnt up and your diet becomes liquids and soft foods for a couple of months. Some of the effects are temporary, some are permanent. Anyone that has gone through head and neck radiation, you are officially a bad ass MF, and anyone that has to go through it in the future PLEASE reach out to me for tips and tricks on how to navigate. #headandneckradiation #headandneckcancer #tonguecancer #squamouscellcarcinoma @dukecancerinstitute #keepshowingup taken in Duke Cancer Institute by @jasongornak

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SURGERY: My initial treatment plan and diagnosis was to surgically remove the tumor from my tongue, which was thought to be a T-1 sized tumor(or Stage 1). After having CT/PET scans they were able to see that the cancer had aggressively metastasized (spread) into three lymph nodes on the right side of my neck. This changed the treatment plan and staging of my diagnosis. Now instead of just removing the tumor from my tongue, they would also need to go in and remove lymph nodes on the right side of my neck. During the last meeting with my surgeon prior to surgery and after the news that the cancer had spread, was the first and only time throughout this entire journey that I asked what my prognosis was. My surgeon told me there is no crystal ball with this type of thing, but I wanted to know my odds prior to going into surgery. He looked at me and calmly said 0 or 100%. It’s one or the other. It’s exactly what I needed to hear and reset my focus on getting better. There was a plan in place and I just had to keep showing up. During the surgery they did a partial glossectomy, removing the tumor and roughly 20-25% of my tongue and a neck dissection where they removed 33 lymph nodes from the right side of my neck. The tumor was larger than they initially suspected and ended up being a T-2/ borderline T-3 in size. During this surgery they remove the tumor, and then go back and remove a layer of the surrounding tissue, which is then biopsied to make sure there are no cancer cells in that surrounding area where the tumor was removed. That biopsy came back with clean margins which meant they successfully removed the cancer from my tongue. With the neck dissection and removal of the 33 lymph nodes, they also biopsy each lymph node to see where the cancer had spread. They found that cancer had affected 8 lymph nodes rather than the initial 3 that they saw in the PET scan prior to surgery. Another tough blow and ensured that I would need both Chemotherapy and Radiation treatments #headandneckcancer #keepshowingup #tonguecancer #squamouscellcarcinoma by @jasongornak

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6 years ago

This is going to come as a shock to a lot of you, and that’s ok, it was for me too. The last four months I have been going through treatments and battling Stage III Squamous Cell Carcinoma, an aggressive form of cancer. When I was diagnosed on July 31, 2020 I was absolutely shocked and honestly, I was floored. I was physically the strongest I had ever been, living a healthy lifestyle and doing all the “right things” but yet at 35 years old, I had cancer and heavy words like surgery, radiation and chemotherapy were being thrown around. So how did this happen? In May 2020 I noticed a small ulcer on the right lateral border of my tongue. It was very small, but it was bothering me enough to go to my primary care physician to have it checked out. He wasn’t sure what it was so he sent me to an ENT the same day for a second opinion. The ENT looked at it for maybe 5-10 seconds and said it looks like trauma and suggested that I bit my tongue and that it was nothing concerning and I was on my way. Weeks went by and the ulcer didn’t get better, but didn’t get worse either so I thought damn this is taking a while to heal for a tongue bite? After another week of this and the ulcer started to change in appearance, I went back to the SAME ENT. This time he looked in my mouth and I could tell he was concerned and then sent me to a specialist within the group to have a biopsy the next day. For a biopsy on your tongue they inject it with lidocaine and then surgically cut a very small piece of tissue from the “ulcer” area and send it off to a lab for biopsy... which in my case confirmed the shitty news. I only shared my diagnosis with my family and a few of my closest friends. I asked everyone to keep the news quiet and not post anything on social media or turn it into topic of conversation. I had an initial treatment plan in place and that helped me focus on the “What’s Next” rather than the “What Is” of my diagnosis/ prognosis. CT/PET scans and surgery, here we go... #squamouscellcarcinoma #headandneckcancer #tonguecancer @dukecancerinstitute #keepshowingup taken in Duke Cancer Institute by @jasongornak

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by @jasongornak

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