Earlier in the week, you may remember we covered the story of a young Fortnite player who’s been attempting to raise the funds to care for his father – who has stage 4 rectal cancer – via donations from his Twitch streams.
zylTV has been streaming games like Fortnite for up to 10 hours a day in an effort to raise the money needed for his dad’s medication and other expenses. As a resident of Canada, zyl’s father’s chemo is covered by the government, but other expenses such as medication and living costs have been difficult to cover, as his father has been unable to work due to his illness.
In one of zyl’s earlier streams, he wrote in the Twitch chat:
His cancer spread to his lungs and liver which brought him to stage 4 cancer. He is currently undergoing chemotherapy. These are the circumstances that the doctors gave him: No chemo one-year death, three years chemo 20% live. Please donate anything you possibly can. All money will go towards funding his medication. Much love from me and all of my family members.
His father then later appeared in a stream to further explain his illness, saying that he’s often left bed bound for days as he struggles to walk. Being unable to work or make money obviously puts the family in a tight situation, which is why young zyl decided to step up and attempt to help in the best way he knew.
In a recent update on his Twitter, zyl revealed that he’s been receiving a fair amount of hate and criticism for his efforts, prompting him to share just what a chunk of the funds raised so far have gone towards. With $6,500, he picked up all the necessary medication, cannabis oil, a wheelchair, and a hospital bed.
He then added that “all donations are for me now”, which was, unfortunately, met with further criticism and bullying by people who seem to have forgotten that the kid can’t be older than 13. This forced his family to step in on Twitter and explain a little better just where the money is going.
In a lengthy post, zyl’s family thanked everyone for their help and donations, and revealed that an impressive $20,000 has been made so far. They also clarified that, while healthcare in Canada is free, a lot of that money will be used to cover the cost of living, rent, and bills, since his father likely won’t ever be able to work again.
They also said that zyl is taking the bullying really hard at the moment, but they all feel that he’s done a great thing for his family and should be proud of himself. To that end, it’s unclear how much of the money raised zyl intends to spend on himself, but come on… he’s a kid who raised money for his dad’s incredibly serious illness, can we really deny him a bit of money to enjoy himself and just be a kid?
Thankfully, just a few hours ago, zyl revealed he’s planning to return to streaming and will simply ban anyone who continues to bully or harrass him.
It’s not clear whether or not these new streams will be in effort to raise further money for his dad, or if he’s just going back to doing it for fun, but I’d say he’s definitely done enough for his family to be proud of.
If you have a story you want to tell, send it to UNILAD via story@unilad.com
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.