Young Fortnite Player Streams Ten Hours A Day For Dad’s Cancer Treatment

Epic Games

A young Fortnite player who says his dad has stage 4 rectal cancer is currently working as hard as he can to raise funds for his treatment. He’s making money the best way he knows how; by livestreaming on Twitch. 

zylTV has been putting shifts in, streaming games like Fortnite for up to 10 hours a day in an effort to raise the money needed via the charitable contributions of strangers. Twitch requires streamers to be 13 years or older, though it’s not clear exactly how old zylTV is.

Regardless, the young man’s plight has started to make waves across the internet after one of his streams went viral on Reddit, with a number of gamers pledging their support and money in an effort to help zylTV and his family.

During one of his streams, zyl took to the Twitch chat to explain the situation he and his family were currently doing through. He revealed that his dad was originally diagnosed with stage 3 cancer last September, but it recently spread to his lungs and liver, giving him a stage 4 diagnosis, and a pretty dire outlook.

He wrote:

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.

By all accounts, it seems zyl’s family are incredibly proud of his efforts, and massively touched by the outpouring of support from the gaming community. In one stream, his dad appeared to explain his sickness, saying that he’s often left bed bound for days as he struggles to walk.

A number of users on Reddit and Twitter have praised zyl, but also pointed out how disturbing it is that a young child is in a position where he has to watch his father go through such an ugly illness, and essentially rely on the kindness of strangers on the internet.

You can keep track of zylTV on Twitch and Twitter, if you feel like donating – or just want to see how the family is doing and check out his exploits on Fortnite and other titles.

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Ewan Moore

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.