Jesse Wendt thought fate had played enough cruel tricks on him and his young family when doctors told him he was riddled with stage four cancer, after two years of searching for answers to what was originally thought to be a problem. dental.
But Mr Wendt, a 32-year-old father of two, from Skennars Head on the New South Wales north coast, could well be considered one of the unluckiest people in Australia during the cascade of events that followed.
Mr Wendt’s condition, an aggressive blood cancer known as advanced stage four classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma, has meant his family’s once successful property maintenance business has been forced to close.
The Wendts subsequently fell into such dire financial straits that their electricity was turned off three times; Mr. Wendt now requires his wife, Renee, to look after him as his caregiver, while he is also the father of two children.
Now the family has learned that they are also about to lose their home, after their landlord issued them an eviction notice that will see them kicked out the week after Christmas.
Mrs. Wendt said that will force them to “basically sleep in the car.” And to top it all off, that car recently broke down.
In an interview about her desperate situation, Mrs Wendt broke down in tears and described her devastating situation as “lonely” and “exhausting”, and something that has been completely out of the family’s control.
“We feel very defeated,” he said. “Just losing everything very, very quickly… we’re about to lose everything and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
The Wendt family faced another devastating blow after receiving an eviction notice to move out of their home a week after Christmas and before Mr. Wendt’s chemotherapy was finished (pictured, Renee and Jesse Wendt and their two children Ben and Liam).
From a ‘dental problem’ to being plagued by cancer
Mr Wendt visited several GPs over two and a half years, but they repeatedly dismissed the lump in his neck as a dental problem.
They believed it was an infection stemming from a jaw abscess, something that required a tooth to be extracted.
But when the lump continued to grow to the size of a golf ball and his symptoms persisted, Mr. Wendt sought more help.
On July 1, his dentist pulled another tooth and advised him to go to the emergency room to have the bulging lump drained.
“The moment the emergency doctor looked at me he said, ‘Oh no, that’s not what you think,'” Mr Wendt told Daily Mail Australia.
The young father was taken to Lismore Hospital, where scans and blood tests were immediately ordered.
within three hours Mr. Wendt and his wife, Renee, were told he had an aggressive form of blood cancer.
“I went to the hospital thinking I had a serious dental problem and they put me in a waiting room where all the doctors were behaving strangely and we didn’t know why, and then they told us I had cancer,” Mr Wendt said.
“It was horrible.”
“I just couldn’t understand it. I had seen several doctors and they didn’t notice, and this doctor just looked at me and knew something was definitely not right.’
Jesse Wendt, 32, (pictured with his wife, Renee) was diagnosed with ‘late stage 4 classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma, an aggressive form of blood cancer.
An emotional Mrs Wendt said she and her husband were in complete shock and disbelief at the diagnosis.
‘It didn’t seem real. “We just sat there and cried because it just didn’t seem real.”
Mrs. Wendt added that her husband’s PET scan revealed massive clusters of cancer that extended from the side of his neck, down to his shoulder, across his chest, into his abdomen and ending at the top of his groin.
Doctors immediately started Mr. Wendt on a six-month treatment plan that included 12 rounds of powerful chemotherapy to combat the aggressive cancer.
‘We’ll basically sleep in our car’
While undergoing intensive chemotherapy, her family received an eviction notice from their rental home, where Jesse, Renee and their sons Ben, 13, and Liam, 10, have lived for three years.
“We’ll basically sleep in our car,” Mrs. Wendt said. “We will be homeless if we have to leave on the date they have set.”
She explained that she and the property owner have a great relationship, even catching up over lunch and coffee. However, a month after her husband started chemotherapy, Mrs. Wendt informed the owner of her situation, hoping they would understand.
However, in an unfortunate coincidence, two days later they received messages from the house’s real estate agency, saying that the owner was planning to move into the property.
Father-of-two Jesse (pictured with sons Ben and Liam) was initially told by several GPs over two years that his symptoms and the lump in his jaw were caused by a tooth abscess. It was an aggressive blood cancer.
“I wrote an email to the real estate agency… just begging me to stay in the house until Jesse finished his treatment,” Mrs. Wendt said.
The eviction notice couldn’t have come at a worse time, as the family goes through cancer treatment with barely any money in their account.
Mrs. Wendt started a GoFundMe fundraising campaign to raise funds to help with their living situation and daily expenses.
“We don’t have any family support nearby, as Jesse’s entire family is a 14-hour drive away,” Mrs. Wendt said.
‘They disconnected our electricity three times, adding more chargers to our bill and our car also broke down while we were going to Jesse’s treatment.
‘Now we are about to lose our house and we don’t even know how we are going to cover the costs of moving. We have nothing left.’
Wendt (pictured with one of her two children) said she was horrified when she discovered the cancer had spread from her neck, shoulder, chest, abdomen and to her upper groin.
A GoFundMe campaign has been started to help ease the Wendt family’s financial stress as they navigate cancer treatment, finding a new rental, paying overdue bills and everyday living needs (pictured Mr. Wendt and his two children).
Mr Wendt said: “We weren’t even prepared for this, like if I had been correctly diagnosed originally, I could have at least prepared for this.”
Mrs. Wendt, through tears, added: “Who prepares for cancer at 32?”
“The worst thing is that since I started treatment we have basically achieved nothing,” said Mr. Wendt.
“I’m trying to focus on my treatment and get better, but the fact is that everything we face costs money and we physically can’t do it without it.”