HAPPY CANCERVERSARY

After surgery to remove the cancer. I weighed 127lbs

Started to lose my hair to chemo so I shaved it into a Mohawk and died it blue

Mr.clean!

The worst part of going bald is losing your eyebrows too....it looks weird

So today marks by 7 year cancerversary. People ask my why do I celebrate when I got diagnosed with cancer? The answer is that because I was diagnosed in time I didn't die, and I have had some life changing experiences from having cancer that I treasure. I can't wish it never happened, because that won't make the fact I almost died go away, but I can take the lessons and experiences I learned from it and hopefully be a positive influence on others who I run into in the future.

If you haven't ever heard my cancer story, here it is.....

I was in Russia serving as a missionary. I felt tired all the time, was losing weight and was very pale. I was serving in Novosibirsk, the center of Siberia, Russia so I thought it must all be caused by a virus I caught or the lack of sunshine. One day I was standing outside waiting for some other missionaries and I felt like a bright light got flashed in my eyes. It was really hard to see. I thought maybe the sun from the snow and a nearby building reflected in my eyes poorly so I decided not to worry about it, but a few days had past and one eye never got better. I was basically blind in my right eye. I decided I needed to meet with my Mission President who was in the same city we were living in, and who was an eye doctor. After the examination President Lawrence (my mission president) told me that what has happened here is very unusual for a person my age and that I had an eye hemorrhage. His neighbor there was any eye doctor so he had him check me out too, only to have him say it’s the same thing and that if I didn’t get eye surgery soon it could be permanent. He felt it would be better if I went back to the states to get it taken care of. It was speculated that I could be back in Russia within in a month. I flew out within 24 hours of finding out about my eye problem. When I landed my mom and family were shocked at how white in color and thin I was. My shirt color was hanging three inches below his neck. His skin nearly the same color as my shirt. The next Monday morning I started with one doctor’s appointment after another. I was the youngest person in those doctor's offices by at least 40 years. Through all the appointments and tests and within a week’s worth of time we found that my eye hemorrhage was caused by anemia, the anemia caused by slow internal bleeding, and the bleeding caused by a cancer the size of a Nerf football that was wrapped around my lower intestines. This is why I was losing weight and becoming pale. I was then diagnosed with stage 4, fast growing, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer. The doctor’s were shocked over the random eye hemorrhage which had a 1% chance of happening with anemia, and its only because of that they caught the cancer in time. When the doctor told me and my mom I had cancer, he was very somber about it, my mom cried, and maybe because I was recently a missionary it didn’t really phase me other than to just say, “ok, so what do we do next?” I think it shocked the doctor and my mom that I wasn’t more emotional about it, but frankly when someone tells you that you could potentially be dead within the month, there is no point in freaking out and crying. I chose to have a good attitude and just deal with it as it comes. My surgery was scheduled with an awesome surgeon Dr.Shafer and another doctor who my family knew very well from church, Dr.Chamberlin. The surgery was over 4 hours long. In fact I remember them saying 6 hours, but I was kind of out of it at that time. During the surgery the main surgeon was shocked how bad it was, but our doctor friend was an internist who specialized in that area and he was able to get more of the cancer than it was thought possible. Dr.Chamberlin usually works out of a neighboring hospital but earlier in the month had applied for clearance there, and it turns out after my surgery he never had a reason to use it again. I was in the hospital for a week recovering from the surgery. Once I started chemo I was able to move around, but Chemo drugs are a freakin’ roller coaster. Even on your up moments, you never feel 100%, you just feel better than you did earlier. And on your lows you just lay there with no energy or motivation to move. For me, going through chemo and having cancer provided me opportunity for many inappropriate jokes that made me laugh and others feel very uncomfortable. But that’s how I chose to deal with it. During the treatments, my eye eventually healed on its own too which was nice, because being blind sucks. Its now 7 years later, I am healthy, insurance companies are still scared of me, I have an awesome scar the length of my stomach, and feel blessed for what transpired during the month of April 2004. If you’re not spiritual, you may chalk everything up to awesome coincidences, and good luck. That’s fine. But for me, I had the most spiritual experience of my life as I saw the hand of God in saving my life, and I will forever be grateful for that opportunity.