Losing a Best Friend

That's personal to us and our family, so we had a meeting with the IF when we were in Los Angeles and explained to them all the ways that cancer directly affected our family and those we care about how it affected. our dad and then also the ways my dad would like to help people, that's what Love from Shawn is, so when you make a donation to Love from Shawn, all proceeds will be distributed to all of these organizations against cancer with whom we really have strong personal support. connection with are things that were real to us, things that we really went through and these charities are fighting these problems and trying to find a solution for the families and people suffering from this horrible disease, so for the first charity What I want Start by sharing a statistic that approximately 1.7 million people are diagnosed with cancer in the US each year and in the US there are about 1,500 cancer centers.

It's heartbreaking to think about all the people sitting at home because they have no way to get to these facilities. Fortunately for my dad, he had a very loving family and

friend

s who would accept him and be able to drive him because he did not have the ability to lose the ability to drive and walk due to the medications he was taking and because the cancer spread to his brain. he. There are some people who can't get it. there and you just have to sit there looking at a hard mint, they said sit there knowing that this disease is in your body and it will take you away and you have no way to do it, you can't help, you know the money to get there or not.

You don't know the vehicle or the person, they just don't have the resources to get to these care centers and they just had to sit there and live with the thought that this disease is taking them away, so the first charity they to us, that our foundation loved on behalf of Sean, is lining up, he will help these families in these people who are fighting this disease come to these treatment centers for charity number two. I want to start with another really disturbing statistic. Nine point six million people are diagnosed with cancer each year around the world.

Nine point six million, which is more than the population of New York. York, actually nine point six million people around the world died due to cancer every year and for my father's situation, it not only affected the five of us, but it affected his family and his extended family, the members from my mother's family, to all her

friend

s, to all her students. all of us faculty members, and that's almost thousands, yes, and that's just one case of cancer in one individual, people don't realize how terrible this disease is, not just for the person fighting it but for everyone who is around that person and cares about them.

Sometimes

losing

someone to cancer can leave a family in a really unfortunate financial situation. My father had cancer for about two and a half years and at the end of his journey in his battle with cancer he received close to, if not more than, three million dollars. of cancer treatment is three million dollars, there are families who cannot afford that the second charity that Love from Sean will partner with helps these families who are dealing with this trauma attend therapy sessions to grieve and receive appropriate care. help they need The third charity Love from Sean will be partnering with is tackling cancer.

I want to share another statistic again. 206 people have been diagnosed with cancer since you started watching this documentary and about 5,000 people are diagnosed every day. with this horrible disease it doesn't feel good we are just letting the disease outnumber us we just have more people diagnosed in a day in our country so there are facilities to help those people by making this documentary it was part My goal is Raise awareness about this terrible disease so that we can outnumber it, yes, because right now it outnumbers us all. I just wanted to tell a quick story, one year after my father's battle with stage 4 gastroesophageal cancer. had been through chemotherapy had been through radiation both forms of cancer treatment countless times his body was breaking down from the treatments and there was simply no way we could continue and there were no other treatments left the chemo stopped working and the radiation stopped working work, so when you hear that your dad has two weeks to live, I mean, it really surprises you when I heard that I prayed for at least another week with him.

By a miracle, there was a treatment called immunotherapy that I had just finished. It's been approved for your form of cancer, so this was a trial drug, basically a trial drug. They are always coming up with new treatments for this disease because of cancer research and widespread cancer charities that they are always actively trying to find a cure for. this disease and new treatments to help these people and it was my dad's last hope and our family's last hope so my dad started immunotherapy after he was cleared for his type of cancer about a week after he got They gave two weeks, yes, and shortly after starting the immunotherapy they started to see a very large decrease in the amount of cancer in his body and in the tumor where his cancer started and it seemed like he was on the road to complete recovery, you know. , just a week after he was given two weeks to live just because of that trial drug and thanks to that trial drug we had an extra year and a half with my dad and for about nine months of that year and a half he was able to live without symptoms , at a time when they found so much cancer in my father's shoulder that he couldn't lift his arm anymore and his bone was going to break, so they were going to have to amputate his arm and I remember it was just like it was like a friend , I'm not going to be able to catch you anymore, it's like throwing the soccer ball, she's young enough to start learning to throw with my other arm.

Wow, and then, you know, a couple of months after the immunotherapy, I was. Hanging out with him and he lifted his arm and he was able to move it again, it's so sad that cancer is doing amazing things for cancer research and that's why we decided to partner with them with the foundation that we created. with our father, so the fourth cancer organization that Shawn will donate his love to is Sloan-Kettering Memorial, which is the Cancer Center where my father received all of these treatments and, in fact, is classified as the cancer center number one cancer treatment in the U.S.

So we are very fortunate to have lived 15 minutes and 15 years at Sloan-Kettering Memorial. They truly support their patients and our family. Also, they checked on us and asked us how we are even after

losing

our father. It is a very special organization, our heart, that we will donate so that they can continue to save lives and give families and people more time here together, and the charity that Shawn's love will donate to is st. Saint Baldrick. Baldrick's is a charity fighting to end childhood cancer. It was always the hardest thing for my dad to see the kids fight the fight that he was fighting and, as we learned, in all the schools where my dad taught or was principal or superintendent. he was all about the kids, so for my dad to see, you know, the kids that he sees playing outside and learning new things, and you know, growing up, all of that had to be taken away from them because they're fighting this terrible illness that he was fighting.

It was extremely difficult for him and another really cool thing that st. What Baldrick does is shave his head, which is to raise awareness and show solidarity with these children and remove the stigma of losing hair. The only time I saw my dad insecure in his entire life was when he lost his hair. in the face of cancer he was like man, I feel like I look sick and I think it was because you didn't want people to think that he was losing hope like he looked bald like, oh, people are going to think I'm nice. to give up or I'm fading and I was like dad, he's just a hair man and at that time I thought about shaving my head for him and I told them about it and usually now I don't do that, it's fine like he would do it.

I'll be upset if he did that. I want you to do it for me. I'm fighting this on my own. Okay, but he was very grateful and he should have done it for these kids and for my dad. and everyone who is losing their hair and you know, feels alone or upset about it. I'm going to shave my head. Those are all the charities that love him. Shawn will also donate, so when you guys donate to Shawn's love, these are all the foundations that will receive your profits, okay Greg, can you come clean it up for me?

Yes, holy hell, yes. I think it looks great. I like it. Okay, let's clean it up. It looks sweet. Clean it up. Yes friend. I always wanted to like to do this, I can't believe I actually did it, it looks so cool, it was so long, I know, put it up with your back, okay, easy, it will be so much easier to have this haircut, yeah, Kinda glad I did it. I'm very happy to have a story that I'm proud of when people ask me what I did. Although the pain of losing a

best

friend will never go away, we have made a lot of emotional progress with him.

In this way, by continuing the conversation about his father's life, we have found a way to maintain our bond with his

best

friend. I came across his dad's old cassette when he was in a band our age and we wanted to listen to it for the first time Oh to donate to love from Shaun visit love from Shaun org we will click the donate button below no donation it's too small if we all come together and donate together your donation will save lives yes to get the foundation started Ethan and I are making a personal donation of $50,000 so we wanted to start the Foundation in an epic way so we got a big check, yes, lift.