Our Journey with Jesus
Keeping the Faith through our Battle with Cancer
The Diagnosis
Tyler's eyes had been bothering him for a while. He made an eye appointment for December 23rd, 2019. He knew Dr. Robison from BYU management society. The Dr said that Tyler had some swelling in the back of his eye. So he made an appointment for him to see a retina specialist. We thought that maybe he would need some eye drops or at worst get a shot in his eye.
On January 14, 2020 Dr. Lord, the retina specialist, did some tests and took pictures of his eyes. The Dr. then went on the tell him that they found tumors in the back of both of his eyes. The left eye being worse then the right. The Dr. told Tyler that he needed to be prepared to walk the path of cancer. And that this kind of tumor usually doesn't start in the eyes. Tyler would need to have some tests done to see the extent of the cancer. Tyler said that when he prayed in the car afterwards that he felt peace.
Tyler came home after his appointment and we talked about what Dr. Lord said. We were both in complete shock. Tyler was a healthy 32 year old. How could this happen? What would this mean for our family?
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Lung Cancer
January 2020
The day of Tyler's first PET and CT scan arrived quickly. By The Grace of God he was able to have the tests done the same week he was diagnosed. Tyler's mother, Gina, volunteered to watch the kids while we went to the hospital. She is a wonderful help to us. Once at the hospital we signed some paperwork and then Brock brought us back to talk and place the IV. Brock is our brother is law, and he works in the hospital. He was very kind and professional. I'm thankful he was there to help us during this time. Tyler said the IV didn't even bruise. Tyler was then required to relax for around an hour after they gave him this sugar mix to drink and the radioactive medicine in his IV. Then I waited for 3 hours in the waiting room. Tyler said this about the PET scan, “I tried to enjoy it like a roller coaster, because I knew it cost $8,000.” Tyler is always an optimist. Though this might be the scariest roller coater we have ever been on.
Tyler had his biopsy done on January 22. The radiologist stuck a needle down into his pelvis to draw out some cells to do testing on. I'm thankful they gave him some medicine so he would forget. Tyler's oncologist gave us the run down of the scans. He showed us where they found cancer cells and he told us the kind of Cancer Tyler has. He has stage 4 lung cancer. Lung Cancer. It was a hard blow. We were all a little shocked, though I'm not sure why.1-5% of young adult non smokers get lung cancer. The CT and PET scans showed that Tyler had tumors in his lungs, in the bones of his right shoulder, both sides of his pelvis, and in the lymph nodes around his heart. And he had tumors behind his eyes, but those didn't show on the scan. Blessedly his tests also showed that he was ALK +. Which meant that he would be treated with Genomics. He would take a pill that will target the cancer cells and make it so they couldn't divide. We felt blessed this was an option.