Jay's Cancer Story
I've never had any health issues prior.
The day something went wrong, I had a major seizure.
I looked at my older brother and my arm locked up. Something wasn't right. He got me on the ground.
The next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital. I know the whole family was here, and people were scared. They did an MRI and a CT scan, and they found a tumor. So they said that the tumor caused the seizure. They wanted to give me seizure medicine, and eventually look into doing a removal.
Came home probably three days later, had another minor seizure, and they were like, alright. We're not gonna take any more chances with any more seizures, so we're taking this thing out.
So the tumor was a golf ball-sized astrocytoma.
The type of cancer Jay has, we call it high-grade astrocytoma. In Jay's case, once we had the diagnosis, we all sat together and discussed with our colleagues in the field, and we came up with a treatment regimen that included chemotherapy and radiation. The surgeons take out what they see, chemotherapy circulates through the whole bloodstream and covers the whole body, and radiation is really helpful for that sort of local regional extra boost to help prevent the tumor coming back locally.
So anytime that you're dealing with radiation therapy in a sensitive structure, and what more sensitive structure can you think of than the brain, you want to treat only as much as you have to. And so by having more sophisticated technologies with imaging, with alignment, verification and safety checks, it can really help spare normal parts of the brain from risk of long term toxicity.
And at the time, he was having tons of mobility issues, after the surgery and because of the tumor.
After the surgery, I was paralyzed from my whole left side. I couldn't move my fingers. Terrifying. Can't feel your toes.
And that's kinda where I met Ashley.
With Jay, he was so focused in the moment of wanting to get better and doing anything, even if it was hard, even if it was tough, even if he was sweating bullets. That's a really big testament of just staying focused in the moment, having small goals as well as big goals. As soon as he was able to advance that foot forward, even in sitting or standing, I'm like, Okay. We're gonna be walking in no time.
Coming from being an athlete, I was super competitive.
My go-to phrase was, "Be a faucet, not a drain."
It's for myself.
I'm a drain them, so I don't wanna be a burden.
Yeah. That makes people care about you. You can't just lay down.
You gotta fight back.
The good thing about Baptist Health in Louisville is that we are at the forefront of these newer treatments. So if you come here, you will get the best of care in oncology. We have all the expertise. We have all the expert people. We have clinical trials. We have all the recent advancement, latest technologies.
We have it right here in our city.
It's about human kindness, decency, and dignity. It is a privilege to be able to help.
I've had four MRIs that have been cleared cancer-free. Bigger and better. "Homeward and upward" is what I've been saying. Yeah. Anyone who sees this should feel some inspiration or hope.
You got it.