Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
When Jason Slone was recently diagnosed with a Hodgkin's Lymphoma, this 27-year-old hip development engineer for Biomet Orthopedics knew he was facing a formidable foe.
As a volunteer firefighter for the town of Claypool, Slone is accustomed to putting his life at risk, but even he was not prepared to hear his doctor quietly utter the phrase, "You have cancer."
"You can assess a fire or an accident scene in seconds," Slone explained. "But with cancer, you are dealing with a situation that changes constantly, and one in which there are no certainties."
Although rare and potentially deadly, Hodgkin's Lymphoma is a highly treatable condition that doctors generally treat with a four- to six-month course of chemotherapy.
Most patients with this condition can count on a full life expectancy, and since Slone's lymphoma was determined to be at stage 3 of 4, the abnormal cells had not yet entered the bone marrow - a positive sign that he should experience a complete recovery.
Nevertheless, the therapy he will endure over the next several months is known to cause such side effects as extreme fatigue and loss of appetite.
So when Jason began experiencing another common side effect of chemotherapy - hair loss - some of his colleagues in the Biomet hip development group pledged to go bald with him in a modest show of solidarity.
But what began as a small group of eight people quickly escalated into a company-wide gala. With much fanfare, local barber John Conley put his clippers to work at Biomet on March 15 and 17, leaving 91 Biomet team members nearly bald.
In addition to the haircuts, cash donations from employees, residents and vendors raised more than $6,000 for the Kosciusko County Cancer Care Fund, a local nonprofit group.
"Jason continues to maintain a busy schedule despite his illness, and it's clear that he has a lot of good friends and well-wishers in the community," noted Troy Hershberger, director of engineering at Biomet.
If you would like to help ease the burden felt by local families dealing with cancer, send a check or money order payable to Kosciusko 21st Century Foundation to: Kosciusko 21st Century Foundation, 117 W. Center St., Suite C, P.O. Box 1810, Warsaw, IN 46581.
