Local boy named Norton Children’s Superhero of the Game at WKU Football game

GLASGOW, Ky. – When he was just 5 years old, Jakob Quenzer got into a bike accident, suffering a head injury that required a trip to the emergency room.

“When we got there, we found out there had been four boys {that had} come in with head trauma. So the doctors decided just to cat scan all of them… and when she came back, she told us that Jake had a brain tumor,” Jake’s mom Rhonda says.

At the time, Jake didn’t have any symptoms of a tumor and it was only the size of a quarter, but that tumor eventually grew to about half a dollar. After craniotomies, gene-targeted therapy and chemo that ended in September of 2023, Jake is down to just MRI’s every 4 months.

“We’ve had three since his chemo ended, and they said the tumor looks like it has shrunk and it’s stable, which is where we want it to be. They said it won’t ever really go away,” Rhonda says.

Jake was recently recognized as a Norton Children’s Superhero of the Game at a Western Kentucky University football game.

“It was crazy… it felt weird, but it was a lot of fun and I’m glad I got to do it… and I’m glad they had me do it,” he says.

Jake’s doctor says he’s loved watching him grow up through this journey and that he’s proud of how brave he’s been in fighting.

“We do miss him in clinic… every time he comes to clinic, which is now every 3 months… the nurse practitioners on the infusion side of our clinic, all the nurses who have been there with him throughout the treatment that come to visit with him, and they just… want him to know how proud we are of him… and we really think of him as a very brave young man,” Dr. Mustafa Barbour, a pediatric neuro-oncologist at Norton Children’s Hospital, says.

Jake also says back in middle school, the basketball team got together to give him a hoodie they all signed.

He’s grateful to his classmates at Barren County High School, who have also been with him every step of his journey.