Commencement! - Western University of Health Sciences

PROFILE
Jacob’s
Story
Jacob Adashek is more than a year
away from enrolling in the College
of Osteopathic Medicine of the
Pacific, but he already feels like
part of the family.
JJacob Adashek is a second-year student at Pitzer
College and is part of the college’s linkage
program with COMP. But his fast track from
Pitzer to COMP was upended when he was
diagnosed with leukemia following the end of
his first year of undergraduate school.
When he talked to Pitzer and COMP about his
diagnosis, he was overwhelmed by the response
and reassured about choosing this particular
linkage program.
“(Former COMP Dean Clinton Adams) said,
‘Don’t worry about anything. Take as much time
as you need. Get better. Your seat is reserved. I
don’t care if you’re a year late, two years late. I’ll
take care of it,’ ” Adashek said. “It put me at
ease. It makes you want to be part of the
WesternU family even more. Pitzer and
Photos by Jeff Malet
WesternU, I couldn’t thank them more for being
understanding of my situation.”
Adashek’s life changed after completing his first
year at Pitzer in May 2011. While visiting his
parents in San Diego during the break, he
noticed a lesion on his lip that wasn’t going
away.
A dentist took a blood test, and found Adashek’s
platelet count was 34,000, well below the
average of 200,000. He went to the emergency
room at UC San Diego, where his bone marrow
was tested. From the ER he went to the bone
marrow transplant wing. He had acute myeloid
leukemia with MLL gene rearrangement, which
gave him a poor prognosis and high risk. He
needed a bone marrow transplant and spent 26
days in the hospital undergoing treatment.
6 Western University of Health Sciences