The whole long story...

So I wanted to give a detailed description of everything that David and I have gone through. So that while we are doing the t-shirt fundraiser the people who make it over here do not have to scroll through 2 years of posts to read the story. I am going to put as much detail into this one post so it is all in one spot. Then if you are feeling really curious you can go read through the rest and get EVEN more!

So I will start at the very beginning...

David and I met down in Orlando FL in July of 2010. David was a counselor in a church camp. My sister was also a counselor and my other sister was a participant. None of them really met during the camp, but after the camp a lot of the counselors hung out for the weekend and did the whole Disney thing. Lela asked me to go with her because she did not want to go alone. I really was not too excited about going but because I am such a great amazing sister I went with her. David and I met there and hit it off pretty quickly… Well, after a few bumps such as no one talking to me, me calling my friend and telling her to come and hang out with me so my sister could stay, and David holding hands with another girl…

So we hit it off and David, pretty smoothly if I might add, got my number. We hung out the next evening again with the same group of people, and then he went home back to Tennessee. We started texting each other pretty quickly after and one thing led to another. And we got married on June 17^th 2011. 

By that fall things were going really well. I actually wrote a journal entry it was the last one I wrote before he was diagnosed. I was writing because we had done something funny and I felt like I really had to write it down before I went to sleep. Looking back on it I do not think I had to write about the really funny thing but about how I felt like was in the right place and I felt true peace and was truly grateful for my life. 

Anyways after that David’s back had really been bothering him we had just gotten an MRI with a sports medicine place and he was going through some physical therapy. Eventually, they got him on cortisone shots because he had 2 herniated discs. In December he finally went to a normal physician. They ran some blood tests and found he was anemic; his hemoglobin was at 8 or 9. They immediately got him on iron and vitamin D pills. At the end of January they had a follow up to make sure his counts had come up. This was on a Monday, on Tuesday we miss a call from them. In the message it sounded really urgent. They said we need to call them back as soon as possible. We need to come by and see them and then go to an ER. But his hemoglobin was at a 5, normal is about 13-15. We get this message and I start to freak a little. But we called them back and they figured he had an ulcer in his stomach that was causing him to lose blood. We thought that was weird because David is a really laid back guy. He really was not stressing over much. But he was working a 3^rd shift so we thought that might be the cause. They told us to go to the ER and get a blood transfusion and a scope to find out the problem. 

At the hospital they did and endoscopy and a colonoscopy. With those they found a tumor in his small intestines, specifically his duodenum. It took a few days to get the results from pathology but they came back and said he had adenocarcinoma. At first I thought ok, no big deal that doesn’t sound too bad. After they told us I ran off to work. I call my mom on the way and tell her what they said. She sounded really confused and we disconnected. She called back and said honey; did you know that is cancer? I said what? No? She said yea… it is. Sooo I ran a red light. (Luckily it was on a side road so there were not any other cars) She kept asking if I was ok, if I was ok to go to work, and she even said she thought I was in shock. I say yea. I am fine! I have to go though I am here. So I get to work get my stuff put up and say to one of the managers. Hey so I just found out David has Ca-WAAHHHHHH! I literally start bawling. Not just a tear or pretty crying. The full, red face, gasping for breaths, crocodile tears crying.  Poor Aaron was like uhhh- are you ok? Are you ok to work? So I go home early. This is one of my low points. I really was not thinking about God or my blessings or being strong, or God has a plan… None of it. 

During the week we were in the hospital we would hurry and do a million tests and then we would wait for the results and then we would have more questions from those results that needed more tests in order to find out anything. This was exhausting. We then went for a second opinion in Atlanta at Emory hospital. We were told David would need surgery after 3 rounds of chemotherapy. 

After he completed his chemo, which got really good results, but before we had his surgery David got pretty sick. We found out he had a bowel block. So we got admitted to the local hospital and then we transferred down to Emory since he would have surgery there anyways. When we get there they do an MRI and we found his tumor had re-grown to its original size and was pressing on his intestines. 

This really freaked out the doctors and surgeons out. They did not know what type of cancer he had since this was not the way adenocarcinoma acted. So out of desperation they had him start a very aggressive radiation. (By this time we had moved down to Atlanta, we were able to live with our cousin’s husband’s mom and dad) He was supposed to do 5 days in a row of high dose radiation. He got to day 2 and they had everything stop immediately. They decided he probably had testicular cancer. They had him do another 5 rounds of chemotherapy. He finished that and everything looked great. We thought we were done and just needed follow ups every few months. In February they discovered that his tumor had grown just barely and he would need surgery. We chose Emory hospital for the surgery. It was a pretty scary surgery because the tumor was pretty close to wrapped around his aorta and vena cava. 

We find out after the surgery that there were additional live cancer cells. (Originally we thought he would just remove the tumor surrounding the aorta in his abdomen.) They had to take out part of his bowel. So after about two weeks in the hospital recovering we go home. We had decided we would take a vacation after the surgery.  About 5 weeks after his surgery our oncologist calls and says what is the plan with chemo? We need to do something! So we talked to about 3 different doctors who all had different reasons for why we need to do a certain type of chemo or why we should wait to do chemo. After we hear this we get referred to Dr Einhorn. Dr. Einhorn is the father of testicular cancer, the best of the best. He is the one who took testicular cancer from below 50% survival rate to closer to 95% cure rate. 

Dr. Einhorn is in Indianapolis Indiana. So it took about 2 weeks for them to get everything they needed. They wanted to make sure he actually had testicular cancer and it was not something else. He wanted all of his medical records, pathology slides, everything! This took a while because there was a lot to send. We finally get everything and we go up on a Tuesday with just a weekend bag. While there we discover we are not going home for awhile. We end up staying up there for 2 months with one week in the middle that we got to go home. David got scheduled to do a stem-cell transplant with chemotherapy. Being in Indianapolis was pretty hard! We were in a city we did not know, without any family or friends. But David’s family was able to come up and visit us almost every weekend. My family was also able to come up and visit as well.

We are home now and David’s last scan looked good. So we now have to wait a year, getting CT scans every four months, until he is cured. Once he hits his one year mark his cure rate goes up to about 95%.

Well thanks for reading along! It has been a long road and a lot of it has blurred together!