Comedian, author and actor Alex Duong has been a member of SAG-Aftra since 2009. He grew to become a door man on the Comedy Retailer in 2021, devoted to remodeling himself right into a self-described “road dog” with a full hour of jokes beneath his belt and headlining exhibits on the calendar. Comedy was serving to pay his household’s payments, or not less than most of them. Even with “Blue Bloods,” “Pretty Little Liars,” Netflix’s “Historical Roasts” and the streamer’s Netflix Is a Joke competition, it was nonetheless tough to satisfy guild minimums for medical insurance.
In January, Duong was set to carry out throughout 41 states by means of the yr, some dates with “The Daily Show” correspondent Ronny Chieng. Donnie Wahlberg, whom Duong labored with throughout a “Blue Bloods” three-season arc, instructed him to be ready for an upcoming spinoff.
When fires unfold throughout Los Angeles, ash rained down on his household’s West L.A. residence. He noticed associates lose their houses, possessions, every thing they’d labored for. The town was on edge. It was at all times dangerous attempting to make it in Los Angeles. Since COVID it was all however not possible, and right away it might all be gone. A headache constructed behind his eyes. He switched his contacts for glasses. Duong was 9 years sober and in any other case wholesome. He most likely simply wanted some downtime, decompressing, wholesome juices and vitamin D to get him again on monitor.
When the Retailer reopened, Duong returned for his door man shift. He instantly received stares. His supervisor pulled him apart, telling him, “Your left eye looks like it’s about to fall out. You should go home.” His spouse Christina did a double take, echoing, “Alex, what’s wrong with your eye?” Within the mirror it was large, taut and discolored.
A fridge stuffed with recollections in Duong’s kitchen.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Instances)
Recognized with alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a uncommon and aggressive most cancers affecting gentle tissue, Duong has a malignant mass blocking blood stream to his optic nerve. He has been supported by Comedy Provides Again, a neighborhood nonprofit spearheaded by Amber J. Lawson, Jodi Lieberman and Zoe Friedman, and a GoFundMe initiated by Hilarie Steele.
“It makes me cry because I know people are struggling so hard right now, and they’re still giving,” he says of the donations acquired. The $5 quantity given beneath the faux title Chris D’Elia, nonetheless, had him laughing for the primary time in months.
Duong’s household, together with 4-year-old daughter Everest, didn’t have medical insurance. They’d struggled to afford it. “It was easier to pay the fine when you pay your taxes than to pay $12K a year,” Duong says. He signed up for and waited till market insurance coverage kicked in to go to the emergency room at St. John’s, the place Everest was born.
After every week within the hospital, a biopsy was carried out and his tumor labeled as extraordinarily aggressive, one thing needing quick consideration. St. John’s offered an eye fixed patch and scheduled therapy two months sooner or later. “And this is with a PPO,” Duong notes. Ophthalmology wasn’t an space of St. John’s experience. “If you want a clean comedy show, you don’t book Doug Stanhope,” he jokes. “You’re not gonna book the Legion of Skanks for your Toyotathon.”
Duong is photographed at house in his daughter’s room along with his journal.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Instances)
Duong was discharged, despatched house and instructed to return in one other week. He frolicked along with his household over the weekend. By Monday, the imaginative and prescient in his left eye was gone.
After 2 ½ extra weeks at St. John’s, Duong felt he was “just being fed and given drugs, sitting there getting fat and missing my family.” He signed out and took an Uber from St. John’s to UCLA at 2 within the morning.
Duong now has a UCLA sarcoma specialist. He’s present process a second spherical of chemotherapy and receiving white blood cell injections to assist his immune system. His thick black hair, a private level of satisfaction and frequent subject of jokes, started falling out in asymmetrical patches on the perimeters and in again and is now totally shaved.
“I look like a tsunami going down on my wife,” he’d beforehand joked onstage. Now with chemo unintended effects, “I’m gonna end up looking like the Last Airbender. Or the fattest Air Gender Bender.”
A passel of medicines and dietary supplements within the kitchen. Some like Ivermectin and Methylene Blue, got to him by well-meaning associates.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Instances)
Duong has been instructed rhabdomyosarcoma has a low survival fee, about 5 years. The mass behind his eyeball traces into his nasal cavity and facet of his neck. A model of electro-acupuncture helps. A specialist in Irvine really helpful hugging his daughter shut each night time. All she understands in the meanwhile is that her daddy is sick. Duong can’t drive and is afraid he’s going to by accident injure folks close to him.
Comedian and neighbor Frank Castillo has been lending Duong assist whereas concurrently navigating his personal father’s most cancers prognosis. “The thing that I love about Alex is he doesn’t quit,” Castillo says. “He constantly strives to get better. Not just as a comic, but as a human being, I’ve watched him become a father to a daughter that’s softened his heart. Alex has a big ol’ soft heart and loves to pretend he doesn’t.”
Although Duong feels the tumor shrinking and the scale of his eye has receded, he nonetheless has monocular imaginative and prescient. In his left field of regard, “I just see black feathers.” If therapy is profitable, he’ll ultimately require extraordinarily dangerous orbital reconstruction surgical procedure. A donor nerve, or a full donor eye, could also be required. He presently owes greater than $400,000 in medical prices.
Duong sits with flowers made by his daughter, Everest, surrounded by her work.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Instances)
“I love this city and everything it’s given me,” Duong says. However in recent times, “Angelos have been left to fend for themselves and each other.”
He hates being instructed that he’s sturdy. “I don’t want to be strong!” he says. “I just want to go tell my d— jokes, make people laugh and hang out with my family.” For Duong, household extends to performers who’ve reached out. “Comedians always have each other’s backs when times are s—. We know how hard it is to pine and struggle and scrape by in this lifestyle, just so we can do these jokes and keep improving. It’s a beautiful thing to see in this world; it really is.”
