The Beginning ~ March 1, 2009

This picture was taken on Feb 28, the day before John was in the dirtbike accident. He was riding his dirtbike with his brother, Ryan, on March 1. He flipped his bike. When he was taken to the ER they did a CT scan and it showed that he had broken his back. He had to wear a "turtle shell" that went around his back and stomach. The CT scan also showed that there was a tumor on the outside of his stomach wall... John was in the hospital for several days and had two biopsies. After getting out of the hospital and not knowing for sure what was going on, we went to see a surgeon who was to perform the third biopsy. It was at that visit that we were told that John did have cancer. It was also the first time that we heard that it was on his kidney. With John having only one kidney, we were very heartbroken to hear this. Dr. Gladding was very compassionate and explained that she would not be able to do another biopsy because it was too close to his only functioning kidney. She recommended that we go to see Drs. Jeffery and Jerimey Brink. They are twins (Jeffery is a transplant surgeon and Jerimey is a vascular surgeon). We spoke with both doctors and John was scheduled to have the tumor removed on April 7th 2009.