Welcome to my Climb2Cure Fundraising Page

My name is Zack Forbush.  I’m 38 years old, and I’m a cancer survivor (Acute Lympocytic Leukemia). It is now my goal to help find a cure, and to also support patients going thru what I had to.  Please join the fight with me. In January 2018, I will be heading to Africa to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro as fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  At 19,341', it's the tallest mountain on the continent. I've decided to make my fundraising $19,341 so every dollar donated gets me a foot higher on my climb :)  I truly believe I wouldn't be here if it weren't for this amazing organization! All donations go directly to LLS...finding cures and helping blood cancer patients get access to treatment.

In March of 2008, I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia.  I had 96% cancerous cells in my blood at the time of diagnosis.  I underwent very intense chemotherapies for almost 5 months before doctors decided I needed a bone marrow transplant.  Thankfully, they found a donor match for me.  I first went through even more powerful chemotherapies (salvage therapy) and 6 days of full body radiation to prep my body for the transplant.  Shortly after my transplant, I got sicker than I could ever imagine, and long story short, it was deemed that the transplant had failed.  The only option was to try again.  But first, they had to try to get me healthy enough to receive another transplant.  My wife was called several times to come say goodbye because the docs weren’t sure if I’d make it through the night.  At this point, I was given an 8% chance of survival.  My wife continued making the trek (Spanish Fork to LDS hospital) up to four times a day: working full time so we could keep insurance, visiting me, and all the while taking care of our then 3 year old and 1 year old daughters.  We have no family near so this was extremely tough. 

After many scary day and nights, pneumonia, viral and fungal infections, the docs were able to get me healthy enough for my second transplant.  Thankfully my donor was willing to go thru the process again; many donors won’t.  On January 9, 2009, I received my second transplant.  Shortly after my body started recovering and for the most part I’ve been on the up and up ever since.  I have had to deal with graft versus host disease, which means the transplant and my body fight a bit, and I did have another scary bout with pneumonia, but I’m now off all medications and live a pretty regular life.  Back to work, back to snowboarding, back to being a dad and a husband, and back to ‘living.’