Cancer survivor pays it forward
At first, Jordan Hauck ignored the lump in his armpit. It wasn’t a nuisance, and he was an otherwise healthy man in his 20s. He worked out regularly and had no family history of cancer. By the time he felt compelled to see a doctor a couple of months later, however, the lump had grown to the size of a baseball.
A biopsy showed it not only was cancerous, but it had spread to his lungs and liver. There was talk of removing a lung and possibly amputating his right arm. The Huxley, Iowa, resident pressed for more options, and that’s when his local provider mentioned clinical trials at the University of Iowa.
Intrigued, Hauck came to the UI campus and met with Mohammed Milhem, MBBS, the associate director of clinical research at University of Iowa Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center. Milhem diagnosed Hauck with stage 4 melanoma, and began him on an experimental treatment regimen that combined a four-times-a-day oral medication targeting the cancer’s metabolic pathway and four high-dose injections of a protein that appears to help the immune system kill cancer cells.
Within a year, Hauck was cancer free.
“We really are so lucky to have the UI cancer center right in our backyard. Even if you live across the state, it’s still not that far of a trip for a lifesaving treatment option.”
“If I could be part of research to help find a cure—or eliminate a treatment that doesn’t work—I was good with that, because my other option was very bleak to begin with,” he says. “I had nothing to lose.”
Hauck returns to the UI once a year for scans and has regular skin checks with a local provider, and has had no recurrence since his treatments ended in 2014. He sees great potential for advances in cancer treatment to occur at the University of Iowa—and he is putting money behind it.
In 2019, Hauck founded Crown Cover, a company that sells clothing that offers sun protection, including shirts, hats, and arm sleeves for children and adults. A portion of the proceeds goes to the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center via his nonprofit, the Cancer Bucket Foundation.
“A lot of people are not aware that skin cancer is so prevalent, and for years I’ve wanted to do something to pay it forward. One day I decided to make an apparel brand. I designed the logo and came up with the slogan: ‘Wear the cure,’” says Hauck, who was 27 when he was diagnosed. “Our mission is to promote awareness and prevention and to give back to cancer research at the University of Iowa.”
Hauck says many people think skin cancer is not serious or that it can easily be removed. He used to be among them. Now he credits his survival to the care he received at Iowa.
“We really are so lucky to have the UI cancer center right in our backyard. Even if you live across the state, it’s still not that far of a trip for a lifesaving treatment option,” says Hauck, who got married in October 2021. “The providers at Iowa are vested in making treatments better rather than just supplying the treatment. I really feel that 100 miles was the difference between me living and not living.”
