Man Blacks Out at His Friend's Gender Reveal Party — and Doesn't Remember the Next Year (Exclusive)

Zachary Schimmel knew he had the most important role at his friend's gender reveal party in July 2021.

"I was the only person that knew the gender of the baby," Schimmel, who was 27 at the time, tells PEOPLE. "Nobody else did. Not him, not his girl, not my girl, none of his family. No one knew the gender but me. And I was so excited about that."

Schimmel was in charge of the cake, which had a pink center and "little dollops" of pink and blue icing. A baby on top was wearing a pink-and-blue-striped onesie. "I was so into it!" says Schimmel.

He and his girlfriend picked up the cake and headed to his friend's house in Leland, North Carolina, just outside Wilmington.

But when they arrived, things took a turn.

"I got maybe two steps up the porch, and then my legs got wobbly, and I stumbled back down the steps and fell onto my butt in the grass," Schimmel, now 30, recalls. "I stood up and suddenly didn't feel very well." Since he was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt on what he describes as "the hottest day of the year," he assumed it was heat exhaustion.

Despite his protests, someone called 911, but when the ambulance arrived, he says, "I brushed them off."

After the paramedics left, he continued to feel bad. "I'm like, 'I'm going to go home and sleep this off.' " He wished his friends a final congratulations. As he and his girlfriend walked toward the car, he fell again. The same ambulance came back.

"The paramedic gets out and he's like, 'Hey, man, this is our second time here, so by law, you need to come with us now,' "Schimmel says. Begrudgingly, he got in the ambulance. The last thing he remembers is a conversation with the EMTs — then he started having a seizure and lost consciousness.

The ambulance took him to Brunswick County Hospital where doctors discovered his brain was enlarged and he had hydrocephalus (fluid on the brain). More troubling, though, was that a CT scan revealed he had a brain tumor. They tried to do an MRI but he had another seizure. That same day, he was transferred to New Hanover Hospital in Wilmington.

Doctors diagnosed Schimmel with a very rare type of brain cancer, pineal parenchymal tumors of intermediate differentiation (PPTID).

“He’s got the rare of the rare type of cancer,” says Dr. Margaret Johnson, MD, MpH, a neuro-oncologist who later treated him at Duke University.

Schimmel had 12 brain surgeries and procedures in one month. He has almost no recollection of anything in the entire year after the party,

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Schimmel is one of five children, and all four of his sisters, his parents and his stepmother travelled to the hospital from New York, North Carolina and Florida to be with him. His family started a GoFundMe to help with medical bills.

In September, his sister Lexxie Bligh, a 33-year-old registered nurse, applied for a job in Duke University Hospital’s neurology department, hoping that would help her brother get accepted as a patient at Duke Health. She talked about her brother’s case in her application cover letter and job interview. Several weeks later, she was hired.

On November 12, after 105 days at New Hanover Hospital, Schimmel went home to Wilmington. (He and his girlfriend were no longer together.) He was in a wheelchair and needed round-the-clock care. His mother and sisters "tag-teamed," taking him to many doctors and outpatient therapy appointments as he relearned how to walk, talk, eat and care for himself again.

When Lexxie moved to Durham for her new position at Duke, she continued to try and get her brother accepted as a patient, even though he lived several hours away. It finally happened in December 2024.

In mid-January, he had his 13th brain surgery — this time at Duke — to relieve pressure in his brain. About a week later, he began intensive chemotherapy and radiation. He moved in with Lexxie to be closer to his care team.

“Me and my husband love having him as a roommate," she says.

Schimmel is now legally blind, as the location of the brain tumor caused a backup of spinal fluid which injured his optic nerve, Johnson explains. But he can walk again and has mostly recovered physically. His MRIs are stable.

“He's made huge strides,” Johnson says.  “With all he’s been through, he’s done incredibly well. He’s pushed himself.”

Now he is reflecting on his journey. "Cancer sucks," he says. "It is miserable. Surviving cancer is the worst thing I've ever done in my life, but I've met some of the best people as a result of it.”

Schimmel, who installed HVACs before his medical ordeal, has since learned Braille and is training to become a digital accessibility analyst to test websites and mobile apps to see how user-friendly they are for people who are differently abled.

"It's amazing," Lexxie says. "Because today, he is my brother from who he was before everything — and there was a long time when we did not think that was going to be possible.”

Schimmel is sharing his story to spread hope.

“To other people just diagnosed with cancer I’d want to say: It's not the end. It will most likely change your life irrevocably, but that's okay. It doesn't mean it's the end, it just means it's a new start."