On a Friday evening in November 2011, I was told "You have cancer". Those are words that completely change your life forever. At the time, the doctor couldn't tell me what I had. All he knew was that I had an 11cm mass in my abdomen and two 4 cm masses, in additon to various 1-2 mm nodules, throughout my chest. My doctor assured me that he would spend his weekend making sure that I had an appointment first thing Monday morning with Texas Oncology in Plano, TX. As he promised, my phone rang at 8:00 am Monday morning and it was Texas Oncology. They requested that I come in immediately to see Dr. Connor. He was so incredibly compassionate that it really helped to relieve some of the stress. Dr. Connor wanted to run some blood tests to see what they could find. And because of the size of of the mass in my abdomen, he wanted me to see a surgical oncologist as well. Of course, the first available appointment wouldn't be for a week. That just extends the time of worry and stress. So, a week later we saw the surgical oncologist, Dr Le Voyer. I knew that there was a pretty good chance that Dr. Connor would send all my lab results so I would be getting some type of information on what I had. Dr. LeVoyer walks in, again, extremely compassionate and says, "a guy your age with elevated hcg and afp in your blood, I feel comfortable with diagnosing you with "testicular cancer". He examined me pretty well, looking for turmors that might be on my testicles. He found nothing. So, he sent me to a urogolist that could do an ultrasound and look for tumors that maybe Dr. Le Voyer just missed. Again, the urologist found nothing. That left one option. They scheduled me for a CT guided biopsy. Another week of waiting. I went in for the biopsy, worrying, of course, about what the process was. But, as it turned out, there wasn't much to it. It was a pretty quick and painless process. The day finally came, and I was told I had Stage III Seminoma. The only treatment option available to me was chemotherapy. This treatment has a 90% cure rate for seminoma. 12 weeks of Etoposide and Cisplatin. It was absolutely the worst 12 weeks of my life. Chemo is so incredibly hard on you. I would receive chemo 5 days per week and would get 2 weeks off to recover. This continued over the entire 12 week process. In March 2012, Dr. Connor reported that I was officially in remission.
When you find out you have cancer, it's not just you that's diagnosed, it's the whole family. I can remember shortly after being diagnosed, still not knowing what type of cancer I had, how scared I was. All I could think about was my wife, Lisa and my daughter, Maddison. To be truthful, I was scared that I was going to die. I prayed so hard over the next few days, and I remember one morning driving to work. I came to a stop light. I had been crying the entire drive. I look up and, standing on the street corner was a guy holding a sign that simply said, "Have Faith". Why was he there on that corner at that time? I immediately felt a sense of relief. I did pretty good for a couple of days, but then, the emotions came back. I can remember praying to God that I would do anything if he would get me through this. I come to a stop a few days later, at the same corner there this gentleman stood again, this time holding a sign that said "Jesus I Surrender". I've always felt that it was God's way of trying to tell me "Hey Jimmy, calm down- I've got this" .
When you find out you have cancer, it's not just you that's diagnosed, it's the whole family. I can remember shortly after being diagnosed, still not knowing what type of cancer I had, how scared I was. All I could think about was my wife, Lisa and my daughter, Maddison. To be truthful, I was scared that I was going to die. I prayed so hard over the next few days, and I remember one morning driving to work. I came to a stop light. I had been crying the entire drive. I look up and, standing on the street corner was a guy holding a sign that simply said, "Have Faith". Why was he there on that corner at that time? I immediately felt a sense of relief. I did pretty good for a couple of days, but then, the emotions came back. I can remember praying to God that I would do anything if he would get me through this. I come to a stop a few days later, at the same corner there this gentleman stood again, this time holding a sign that said "Jesus I Surrender". I've always felt that it was God's way of trying to tell me "Hey Jimmy, calm down- I've got this" .