Future in focus

By Tania Martin
WHILE his classmates face their VCE exams this week, Sassafras teenager Jesse has his eye on a bigger prize keeping brain cancer at bay.
In February last year Jesse’s world was turned upside down when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour the size of a mandarin.
Jesse, now 18, said at the time he was suffering from double vision in his left eye, dizziness, a lack of energy and migraine headaches.
He said his doctor originally diagnosed the dizziness and lack of energy as an iron deficiency while the vision and headaches were contributed to an eye astigmatism.
Jesse, who does not want his surname used, was given spectacles to improve his vision, and although they helped for a while, his vision continued to get steadily worse in his left eye.
His parents, Eva and Robert, were unhappy with the diagnosis and took Jesse back to the doctor where he was referred to an eye specialist.
The first thing the eye specialist did was to order a brain CT scan which revealed a mass on Jesse’s brain.
Following the brain scan, the doctor called Eva into the room prior to telling Jesse the diagnosis.
Jesse said when he went in to the doctor’s room he made a silly face at his mother because she had a look of horror on her face.
“I was thinking what’s the big deal and made a face hoping to make her laugh, but she didn’t smile and I thought it must be something bad,” he said.
Jesse said he thought at the time there was a good possibility that he could be dead within a couple of months or even days.
He was rushed to hospital for a biopsy the next day.
Jesse said the strength to fight the cancer came from the anguished look in his parents’ eyes when they walked into his hospital room after the biopsy results.
“I accepted that my time might soon be up and was happy knowing I could be in a place where I was OK with it.
“That was until my parents walked into the room with a look of woe, terror and sadness.”
Following the biopsy, Jesse was told that the tumour was malignant and was started on a treatment plan.
Jesse had two cycles of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiation therapy.
Following his treatment, Jesse returned to school where he had missed three quarters of year 11, but still decided to continue with year 12 this year.
However, as this year drew to a close, Jesse decided not to finish this year as he would have failed, but to spread his studies over two years.
Jesse will work towards finishing his year 12 studies next year, including music and English classes. He said he would like to make a career out of producing music videos, but in the shortterm was looking into providing lighting support for bands.
Earlier this year Jesse met his idol, Weird Al Yankovic, when the MakeAWish Foundation sent him on a trip to Universal Studios in Hollywood.
He said meeting Weird Al Yankovic was the highlight of the trip and that he was able to speak to the recording artist for just under an hour.
Jesse is now working on an animated video for a school project about a rock song that a friend from CANTEEN a cancer support group wrote.