Donations pour in for Minneapolis firefighter battling cancer a second time
A decades-long Minneapolis firefighter is now fighting another battle of his own. Six months ago, Mark Lakosky was diagnosed with multiple myeloma.
"I don't even feel sick. It's getting me. I mean the cancer was doing its stuff but, I don't feel sick yet," Mark Lakosky said.
Being away from the job is certainly an adjustment for Mark Lakosky, the almost 24-year veteran Minneapolis firefighter and union president.
His three months of quarantine for cancer treatments are doctors' orders.
"I feel OK. I feel a little off from the chemo today," Mark Lakosky said.
The diagnosis came about two years after his surgery for prostate cancer.
"Just under two years to the day, I get this and I'm like 'Lord, what's up?'" Mark Lakosky said.
He makes a point of living healthy, and he doesn't smoke. It left doctors to point to his profession as the likely cause.
"It's got to be the firefighting stuff, whatever you're sucking in or whatever," Mark Lakosky said, explaining what his doctors said.
Research by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) found that firefighters are 9% more likely to get cancer than the rest of us, and 14% more likely to die from it.
"How do firefighter groups have all these cancers at percentages higher than the non-firefighter group?" Mark Lakosky said.
Experts believe it's tied to the toxic smoke from the fires they fight.
"You hear that your loved one has a diagnosis like this, you just sort of gasp and hold your breath, and I feel like we've been holding our breath for many, many months," said Mark Lakosky's wife, Kim Lakosky.
In the meantime, community members have come up big. An online fundraiser started two weeks ago has now raised more than $50,000 to help pay for Mark Lakosky's medical bills.
"I don't even have words, I mean, a couple times I've started crying, it just kind of got me," Mark Lakosky said.
It's a fight Mark Lakosky said he's determined to win. In fact, he's hoping to be back to work in the next few months
"Like everything, I plan on knocking it out," he said.
Mark Lakosky received a bone marrow transplant on Wednesday.
While there's no cure for multiple myeloma, his goal now is just to get into remission.
