Man Leaves Wall Street Job To Transport Chemo Patients to Treatments After Mother's Death
Cancer is a terrible affliction that we hope we and our loved ones will never face. The reality is, though, that someone we know has probably already gone through it or will in the future.
Sometimes the simplest things are difficult when you’re trying to focus on getting treatments. Other people are busy and you can’t always get the help you need — which is what one man, 35-year-old Zach Bolster, realized after losing his own mother to cancer.
Gloria, his mother, had survived breast cancer but cancer came back and took her life just six weeks after the second diagnosis.
At the time, Bolster had a promising career ahead of him, living the life in New York City.
“I was in New York living my life and we were both intensely focused on our careers,” he said, speaking of himself and his wife, “but we were really happy. But then my mom got diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer and we dropped everything and moved in with my mom. We were all focusing on getting my mom better.”
As anyone with a wonderful mother knows, losing a mom is like having the tapestry of family start to unravel.
“She spent her life helping everyone,” Bolster said. “She had an important career, she was an athlete… but she was always the one helping all of us.”
But Bolster, along with others in his family, was surprised over a complication regarding a rather simple aspect of the cancer fight: transportation to and from treatment.
“My family was shocked by how many cancer patients had difficulty getting to their chemotherapy treatments,” he said, according to People. “We soon realized what a huge financial and family burden transportation during cancer treatments can be.”
“Some patients resorted to riding the bus, others, unfortunately, missed their treatment altogether.” Having someone succumb to cancer merely because they couldn’t get a ride to their treatment? That didn’t sit well with Bolster.
So he decided to do something about it. He founded a nonprofit called ChemoCars, where cancer patients could call and have someone to drive them to their appointment, almost immediately, if their ride disappeared or they just needed one in the first place.
He knew that such a service would have to be free, easy, and reliable for cancer patients to use it. Since he started the organization, over 2000 rides have been given.
“He is such an extraordinary man, such a sweet guy,” said Patricia Curry, who is 58 and currently using the service to get to treatments for her breast cancer. “There have been a couple of times where I haven’t been feeling well and I forget to call for a ride and he’ll check in and call to see if I need a car.”
“We just want to help people and we got so excited by this idea and we believe in our ability to execute it,” Bolster said.
“We think it’s a worth a shot. We’re working really hard and it feels great to help people. We’re doing this for my mother.”
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