About

The Beginning

Robbie Eklund's story is one of those rare human stories that sounds too impossible to be real until you realize there are medical charts, scars, exhausted doctors, and a very stubborn kid standing in the middle of it all. The kind of story that makes people stop talking for a second because it forces them to remember how fragile and fierce life can be at the same time.

Born on July 24, 2004, Robbie entered a world that would immediately test everything he had. Only two weeks after his birth, his father, Rob, was deployed overseas as the Iraq War was ramping up. Jana stood strong at home while Rob served overseas. His family was suddenly split between military duty, uncertainty, and a medically fragile newborn. Before Robbie had even learned to hold his head up, life had already started demanding everything from him — and from his family.

The Diagnosis That Changed Everything

Eventually, Robbie was diagnosed with Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, a rare and severe immune deficiency disorder that would define his childhood — but not his spirit. The diagnosis changed everything. It meant hospitals instead of playgrounds. Isolation instead of ordinary childhood. But it also meant something else: it meant his family would become unbreakable.

As a small child, Robbie underwent a bone marrow transplant at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. The transplant was considered his cure, but like many miracles in medicine, the cure came with consequences. The medications that saved his life also reshaped it. Rob and Jana became warriors alongside their son, learning medical terminology most parents never hear, making decisions that would test their strength every single day.

He spent years living almost like a "bubble boy," unable to safely attend normal school because even common illnesses could become life-threatening. Robbie was homeschooled and isolated for much of his childhood. While other kids traded Pokémon cards at recess, Robbie learned hospital routines and something far more valuable: how to survive, how to hope, and how to keep smiling. Jana homeschooled him. Rob worked to support them. Together, they refused to let the diagnosis define their son's future.

When Everything Got Harder

The steroids used to keep him alive weakened his bones so severely that his back broke. Robbie had to learn how to walk not once, but three separate times. Three times he had to teach his own body how to move again. Three times he had to refuse to stay down. The kind of resilience that doesn't come from textbooks — it comes from the deepest part of who you are.

The treatments also caused severe cataracts, leaving Robbie blind for about a year. During that same period, he developed a devastating fungal infection — aspergillosis — that spread into his heart, lungs, and brain. For an immunocompromised child, aspergillosis is often a death sentence. The survival rate for disseminated aspergillosis in children with severe immunodeficiency is devastating. Doctors gave Robbie only days to live.

Days. Not months. Not hopeful statistics. Days.

Two Years in Reverse Isolation

The aspergillosis was ruthless. It became the reason Robbie spent two full years in a reverse isolation room at the hospital. Two years where the world had to be kept away from him. Two years of watching life through glass and sealed doors. During those two years, he lost his eyesight for an entire year because of the severe infections ravaging his body. School was on the back burner. Survival was the only thing that mattered.

He underwent open-heart surgery after the infection created a hole in his heart. He battled additional infections that required surgery and countless procedures. Over those two years, Robbie endured central lines, PICC lines, IJ lines, NG tubes, ports, blood draws, IVs, scans, medications, and the endless beep and hum of hospital machines. Rob and Jana were there, suited up, following protocols, but never leaving his side.

But here's the thing about Robbie that no doctor could have predicted: he made jokes. He adapted. He watched the world instead of fully participating in it, developing a sense of humor and perspective that most adults never acquire. While many people complain about trivial things, Robbie was learning how to survive while connected to machines — and somehow, he was teaching everyone around him what courage actually looks like.

Despite everything, he kept going. Because he wasn't alone. Because his family refused to let him fight that battle by himself.

The Moment Everything Changed

Eventually, the aspergillosis was defeated. The surgeries worked. His eyesight was restored after receiving lens implants. Against impossible odds — medical odds that most people never beat — Robbie walked out of that hospital alive.

Doctors and nurses reportedly lined the halls to watch him leave. They stood there watching a kid who was supposed to have had only days, walking out of their care with his parents at his side. Walking past staff who had fought alongside him. Walking toward a future that medical statistics said he wouldn't have. Because they genuinely considered him a miracle. And they were absolutely right.

One More Mountain

Years of lifesaving medications had severely damaged Robbie's kidneys. By the time he reached high school, he needed a kidney transplant. In September of 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Robbie received a kidney donated by his father, Rob.

A father literally gave his son part of himself. That's what unwavering support looks like. Rob didn't hesitate. He didn't measure his sacrifice. He gave what his son needed. And he did it during a global crisis. Schools were shut down. The world was masked and afraid. Robbie even contracted COVID before the transplant. Yet somehow, through all the chaos, the surgery succeeded.

Another impossible chapter survived.

From Hospital Beds to the Dean's List

Robbie's childhood education had been severely delayed because of his immune deficiency. He did not even begin attending school until fifth grade, and when he started, he didn't yet know how to read. Many people would have accepted defeat right there. The gap seemed insurmountable.

Robbie didn't accept defeat. He never has.

Step by step, he worked his way out of special education services. He caught up academically. He graduated high school with a 3.6 GPA. Later, he attended Mitchell College in Connecticut, where he balanced business studies with entrepreneurship and earned Dean's List honors with a 3.89 GPA.

All while managing a medically complex life that would have justified giving up at any moment. All while carrying scars that most people never see. All while proving that your circumstances don't determine your future — your character does.

Why This Matters

Robbie's life is not just a story about surviving illness. It is a story about endurance without losing softness. About strength without bitterness. About a kid who went through enough medical trauma for several lifetimes and still came out wanting to help other people.

It's also a story about Rob and Jana — parents who refused to let their son's fight be his alone. Who showed up. Who sacrificed. Who loved their son not in spite of his struggle, but alongside it, every single day.

Somewhere along the way, all the medical experiences that could have broken Robbie instead became fuel. He noticed something deeply human while spending years around treatments and medical devices: people carry so much weight just trying to get through each day. People deserve to feel comfortable. People deserve to feel like themselves, no matter what they're carrying.

So Robbie helped create Tenacious Wave — not as a company, but as a mission. A mission rooted in lived experience. A mission born from impossible odds and unwavering family love.

Not merely that he survived.

It's that after everything, he still wanted to build something kind.

That's the extraordinary part. That's why Tenacious Wave exists.