As Teena Punjwani and Deepak Nasta take inventory of the final yr, they sigh.
“I feel like I’ve lived too many lifetimes in this one lifetime,” Punjwani stated.
The San Jose couple’s life collectively was thrown into chaos in February with a heartbreaking prognosis: their 5-year-old son, Jayaan, had mind most cancers. His dad and mom had sensed that one thing was off final winter, when Jayaan’s writing expertise nosedived at preschool and he mysteriously misplaced stability on the left facet of his physique.
What adopted have been months and months of anxious days and lengthy nights at clinics and hospitals as Jayaan, powerful as nails, soldiered by means of his remedy plan: mind surgical procedure and chemotherapy, plus a whirlwind of appointments for occupational remedy, bodily remedy, blood checks and MRIs.
Teena Punjwani cuddles her son, Jayaan Nasta, who suffers from a kind of mind most cancers, at Lucile Packard Kids’s Hospital Stanford on April 21, 2025.
Photograph titled: “Couch cuddles … a mother’s arms, a child’s safest place.” — Teena Punjwani
(Photograph by Punjwani’s husband Deepak Nasta)
By the ups and downs, although, the couple weren’t alone. Employees from Jacob’s Coronary heart, a nonprofit primarily based in Watsonville serving households in Silicon Valley and the Central Coast who’ve a toddler with most cancers, stepped in to assist them climate the ordeal.
After a hospital social employee pointed them to the nonprofit, the household stated, Jacob’s Coronary heart offered a slew of sources with all of the care and a spotlight of a member of the family. The nonprofit has paid for his or her vitality payments at residence, plus their groceries and fuel. Nasta is the household’s sole breadwinner in the meanwhile as Punjwani virtually lives at Lucile Packard Kids’s Hospital at Stanford with Jayaan.
When the hospital discharged Jayaan earlier this yr, Jacob’s Coronary heart employees visited and performed with him, bringing a few of his favourite toys, like Mickey Mouse and Bluey.
The nonprofit additionally dispatched van drivers to whisk them from their residence to medical appointments, as early as 6 a.m. or as late as 10 p.m. – and in emergencies, reminiscent of a day this fall when Jayaan turned unresponsive and landed within the pediatric intensive care unit for a month
“They’re such an amazing team,” Nasta stated. “We honestly could not do it without them.”
The nonprofit’s companies are exhaustive: transportation to medical appointments, remedy and emotional assist, mother or father assist teams and grocery deliveries for households with immunocompromised youngsters. The group helps pay for funeral and memorial bills. Specialised staffers generally known as household assist specialists are liaisons with the households and join them with no matter they could want.
Mary Smith, director of household companies at Jacob’s Coronary heart Kids’s Most cancers Help Companies, explains “Caroline’s Closet,” a free clothes and family provide useful resource for households, on the Jacob’s Coronary heart Household Middle on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in Watsonville, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Space Information Group)
On particular events like birthdays, Jacob’s Coronary heart Kids’s Most cancers Help Companies offers toys to their younger purchasers. (Dai Sugano/Bay Space Information Group)
Awards and recognitions fill a wall inside Jacob’s Coronary heart Household Middle on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in Watsonville, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Space Information Group)
A play space for younger purchasers on the Jacob’s Coronary heart Household Middle is seen on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in Watsonville, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Space Information Group)
Kathryn Vakili, communications coordinator at Jacob’s Coronary heart Kids’s Most cancers Help Companies, left, and Alicia Diaz-Infante, grants and affect information specialist, give a tour of the Jacob’s Coronary heart Household Middle on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in Watsonville, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Space Information Group)
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Mary Smith, director of household companies at Jacob’s Coronary heart Kids’s Most cancers Help Companies, explains “Caroline’s Closet,” a free clothes and family provide useful resource for households, on the Jacob’s Coronary heart Household Middle on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in Watsonville, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Space Information Group)
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All freed from cost, no questions requested.
Most of Jacob’s Coronary heart purchasers dwell round Monterey Bay, plus clusters within the Salinas Valley and the southern tip of the Bay Space. Many are Latino and lower-income. On an enormous map within the nonprofit’s Watsonville useful resource middle, a whole lot of pins mark the properties of households who’ve, in some unspecified time in the future, accepted assist in the 27 years since Jacob’s Coronary heart launched.
Jayaan’s household is one in every of two dozen in Santa Clara County whom the nonprofit is now serving after increasing into the county this summer season. Jacob’s Coronary heart is searching for $40,000 to additional its growth into Silicon Valley and proceed its core companies in Santa Cruz County. With that funding, the nonprofit stated, employees may assist at the least 50 households in Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties.
The nonprofit is called for Jacob Judd. As a toddler within the Nineties, Judd was identified with most cancers and given a 5% survival price. He beat the chances. Now, he’s in his 30s.
Different youngsters have been much less lucky. Hanging on the wall subsequent to Judd’s portrait within the nonprofit’s Watsonville useful resource middle are pictures of two children who didn’t survive: Maddy, who impressed the nonprofit’s arts applications, and Augustin, whom Jacob’s Coronary heart helped ship to Mexico to be along with his household. On a foggy day in late October, employees had erected a Dia de los Muertos altar the place dozens of households provided ofrendas to their family members.
Eli Garnica, supervisor of growth and communications at Jacob’s Coronary heart, stated folks usually provide sympathy when she tells them what she does, and the work may be emotionally taxing. Nevertheless it’s fulfilling, she stated – even “joyous” to observe households construct group and work collectively.
“We get to play a role in their journey and their life,” Garnica stated.
The nonprofit’s residence base in Watsonville is as removed from a dismal clinic or social companies workplace as you’ll be able to think about.
Jayaan Nasta performs on the seaside in Monterey in 2024. (Photograph by his mom Teena Punjwani)
The colourful house is replete with youngsters’s toys, home crops, therapists places of work, a group kitchen, a meals pantry and a free clothes retailer. Employees host volunteer occasions and “art from the heart workshops,” the place children be taught to precise themselves artistically. And in the summertime, Stanford hospital nurses volunteer on the nonprofit’s three-day summer season camp.
That day was a very good one, Punjwani stated, “because Jayaan is having a good day.”
WISHDonations to Jacob’s Coronary heart Kids Most cancers Help Companies will assist the nonprofit present purchasers with transportation to remedy and medical appointments, nutritious meals, and disaster assist, along with serving to with bills associated to the security and care of the kid with most cancers. Aim: $40,000.
