LUBBOCK, Texas– Hospice of Lubbock reconnected one of its patients with his two brothers in California.
Jacob Mount, 35, suffers from a rare hereditary disease called Gerstmann-Straussler-Sceinker Syndrome which affects the nervous system and a persons ability to function on their own.
Mount has been in Lubbock as his health declined with no trace of his family. Hospice of Lubbock workers Ashley Loveless and Peggy Wood made it their duty to find his family.
“He had nobody,” Loveless said. “So, we didn’t have Power of Attorney, we didn’t have next of kin. We can’t really communicate with him because of his disease. So, we were just trying to find out. There has to be somebody somewhere looking for him.”
Jacobs brother, Nathan Mount, was shocked when he got the call because he had not seen or spoken to his brothers since their dad’s funeral in 2016.
“I didn’t have Jacobs number. I didn’t even know he was in Texas. Last I heard, he was in California, maybe like five or six years ago. So, I don’t know when he moved out there,” Nathan said.
The GSS disease Jacob suffers from has been constant in their family.
“[It] pretty much killed my father, my aunts, my grandfather. I have it too so I will become symptomatic someday, but I am not right now,” Nathan said.
Loveless said they searched to find people with his last name and then they finally got connected with a family member.
“One of our ladies upstairs, Jennifer, [said] she actually found an aunt through a funeral home from Jacob’s grandmother,” Loveless said. “[She said] I know this is a long shot, but do you have a contact number for whoever arranged this funeral, and he said. ‘Yea I do,’ and gave it to us. And it turned out to be Jacob’s aunt.
The aunt connected them with his two brothers, Chris and Nathan, who immediately came to see their brother in Texas to bring him back home.
“He was very emotional. They were hugging. He got to meet two of nieces and his sister-in-law,” Loveless said.
“It was a great team effort there was a lot of people that pulled together to make it happen,” Wood said. “His brother, God bless him drove him all the way back to California because that’s what Jacob wanted.”
Jacob is now back in California with his family in the care of Covenant Health’s sister facility, Providence TrinityCare.
