Morris Preschool Teacher Copes With Teen Son's Cancer Diagnosis

MORRISTOWN, NJ — Jenne Mocko has dedicated her career as an educator to working with and assisting children with special needs. But the Morris School District preschool teacher has recently seen the community rally around her to help her family after her her teenage son was diagnosed with cancer in recent months.

This week along, a GoFund Me effort has raised more than $43,000 as of Friday to support Mocko and her son, Jake, 17, who was diagnosed with Grade IV astrocytoma, a rare type of cancer that affects the central nervous system. Jenne is a preschool intervention and referral team member at Lafayette Learning Center preschool.

Jake is currently undergoing radiation treatments, but, according to the family’s GoFund Me page, the form of cancer that he is fighting does not typically respond well to radiation. Once the radiation treatments are finished, doctors have recommended that Jake begin clinical trials in Washington, DC, which has left the family in an urgent situation and in need of help, the page said.

The diagnosis was made after Jake began experiencing pain in his lower back. Over-the-counter medicine and physical therapy did little to address the pain. After consulting with a neurologist, Jake underwent an MRI, which revealed a large tumor in his spine. While Mocko and her son were told that the tumor was benign, surgery to remove the tumor was scheduled. Although doctors were able to remove much of the mass, parts of the tumor had wrapped around Jake’s spine, making them unreachable, the GoFund Me page said.

Jake was left with no mobility in his arms and his legs and also experienced a loss of feeling in his mid-section, the GoFund me page said.

“Jake is a sweet, humble, and loving child who does not deserve to suffer through this,” family friend Gabriela Lorelli and GoFund Me organizer wrote on the page.

Jake was scheduled to return home this week from the rehabilitation center, but the family’s home is not equipped for wheelchair access. A wheelchair ramp must be built and the family must move Jake’s bed into the dining room on the first floor of the Mocko family home and a bathroom must be reconfigured to fit a wheelchair, Lorelli wrote. The list of needed changes continues to grow while Morris and her family continue to deal with the shock of Jake’s diagnosis.

“While (the family was) focused on helping him learn to walk and move his arms again, they were blindsided with the diagnosis of an aggressive and rare form of cancer,” Lorelli wrote. “The family is devastated.”

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