SPOKANE, Wash. – A car crash involving a local father of five may have helped save his life. During his hospitalization, he says doctors found cancerous tumors in his brain. He says symptoms that something was terribly wrong in his body were minor, and he had no reason to be concerned.
“I’m going to go with the thought that it happened for a reason and that it was to help me learn sooner than later that something needed to be addressed and will hopefully prolong my ability to be a dad,” Jason Hand said.
The accident happened in mid-September.
“It was a really bad accident,” he said. “They had to use the jaws of life to get me out.”
But just how bad, and life altering that morning would turn out to be, Hand never saw coming.
“Literally I was on my way to work everything was normal and fine and the next day, everything changed,” he said. “I don’t recall too much because it happened so fast.”
Hand has five children. His 11-year-old was with him during the wreck and was also hospitalized. His son was released by week’s end, and Hand assumed he’d be on that same path. A routine scan to check for a concussion found something that would shift everything.
“(I have) multiple brain tumors actually,” he said. “They wanted to do the biopsy soon while I was still dealing with injuries from my car accident.”
He too just wanted and needed to know his prognosis. But nothing could have prepared him.
“I have Glioblastoma,” he said.
A type of brain cancer that the 48-year-old says he’s still shocked he has because he was feeling relatively fine.
“I was starting to get some dizzy spells, wasn’t sure if I was overworking myself,” he said.
Hand says it wasn’t uncommon for him to log 60 hours a week managing a popular restaurant. He says his two loves in life are his family and working. After the wreck and diagnosis, he’s been able to return to the job he loves. He’s focusing everything he has into fighting for everything and everyone he loves.
Hand has spent the days since being released from the hospital meeting with a medical team to go over their plan to fight the cancer. He struggles with his balance and feeling weak, but is working hard to stay strong and positive through the battle.
“Even if the worst-case scenario plays out, at least I know I have time,” he said.
Through it all, Hand just hopes by sharing his story, it somehow will help someone else.
“My plan though is to attack it every way possible,” he said. “To do my best to focus on love and the positive, to be thankful for the time that I have had and will have. In no way is my plan to give up, if anything it’s to fight harder to spread awareness to others which will hopefully help save lives. To surround my situation and life with more positivity and love.”
Hand encourages all busy dads and men out there who normally prioritize everyone around them to make time to schedule a physical with a doctor; do it for the people you love.
