my story 1991-2012
Hello!
My name is Jared Joseph Boyd. I am the middle child of seven kids - four brothers and two sisters. I enjoy collecting stamps, playing my violin, school
(especially science-related subjects), singing in the choir at my church, photography and reading. I began having pain in my right hip back in March of '09 but merely thought that I was in need of a chiropractic adjustment not knowing that I had a tumor the size of a baseball in my pelvis! On a Thursday, after 3 weeks of waiting for my bone biopsy to return, we got the call: I had a rare form of pediatric cancer called Ewing’s Sarcoma. That call sent us into the world of pediatric cancer treatments.
The next day we went for all day testing at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis and met with an oncologist to discuss my options. By Monday I was
getting a central line placed to begin chemotherapy. The treatments would take 9 months, with a break after 6 to remove the tumor. I was in the hospital every
other week, usually 5 days at a time. The first 6 treatments were rough and there were entire weeks when I couldn’t eat. Hospital food is not good to begin
with, but when you add chemo it’s 10 times worse. The good thing though, after I left the hospital all my nausea usually cleared up and I was able to eat enough
to keep a healthy weight.
In December ‘09, I underwent surgery to remove the tumor and my right iliac crest, the doctor was able to get the entire tumor! Because of the extent of
my surgery I had to learn how to walk again, which was a very long, slow process. Thankfully, I recovered quickly and was able to go home on Christmas
Eve and spend Christmas with my family, which was a BIG answer to prayer. After I finished the rest of my treatments I went back that the doctors
which is when they told me I was “cancer free”.
That summer was very busy and exciting for our family. Our whole family went out west for my brother’s wedding and while we were there we got to visit Las Vegas, the Hoover Dam, and I began taking college classes and was feeling good, until the middle of November. My right hip, where I had surgery, had begun to hurt again and we thought a screw in my hip might have broken, but the pain kept getting worse and worse. On my 6 month, December check-up, the doctor discovered 2 new tumors in my hip, and later scans found 6 more nodules in my lungs. The biopsy confirmed that cancer had returned. Once again we met with my oncologist to discuss treatment plans, but they didn’t really have plans for re-lapse, and they said that even with treatment it didn’t look good. We decided on two
more rounds of different chemo’s while we looked for other forms of treatment.
In January ’11, I started several forms of alternative treatments. In April we removed one of the tumors in my back because of the pain, but in the scans after surgery the doctor said there were so many tumors in my lungs they couldn’t even count them all. The doctors wanted to put me on a different treatment just to keep me comfortable. Instead, we decided to try some alternative IV therapy, which I believe is one of the reasons (beside prayer) that I am still here. In late summer ‘11, the pain in my leg kept getting worse and worse until one day I fell and my leg started to go numb from my waist to my knees.
A scan showed the tumor in my hip was starting to encroach on my spinal cord and I was very close to being paralyzed. That weekend, which was 1 year ago last week, I began some emergency radiation and within 3 treatments the pain was gone! When they took a follow up scan a couple months later they couldn’t even find the tumor! After that tumor was taken care of they moved on to some of the bigger tumors in my lungs. This continued on and off until this past April. Over all, last winter and spring were not that bad. I was even able to attend classes again that spring.
I began having pain in my left side which wasn’t that bad so I ignored it, until one night when I laid down, all of a sudden I couldn’t get my breath and my
heart started racing! An X-ray found that the area where my lungs were suppose to be was completely filled up with fluid and my entire left lung had collapsed. I was admitted for an overnight stay to drain the fluid, but instead I was in the hospital for 21 days! My lung wouldn’t stop draining so they did another scan and said that there was a football size hematoma (blood clot) that need to be removed. Well, they went in to remove it and found out it wasn’t a hematoma, it was a
tumor. It was too big to mess with and the doctor even told my parents after the surgery that he didn’t think I would make it out of the hospital.
I recovered from the surgery, returned home and started radiation on that tumor, which according to the most recent scan has greatly shrunk! After we finished
the radiation, my doctor recommend more chemo, because she said I need something that would treat the whole body. So for the last couple months I have been undergoing more chemo. Still, this summer, besides the radiation, has been one of the best summers I’ve had. In June my brother Ben and sister-in-law Karina welcomed my beautiful little niece Kinley into the world. In July our family was able to go the Bill Rice Ranch for family week again. In
August my older sister Kate got married to Valentino, and my oldest brother Tim married Rachel. So I am very blessed to have a new brother-in-law, a new sister in law, and a new niece all in one year. I am also very blessed know all the people that I have met the last 3 years. If I had never had cancer I would have never met them: nurses, doctors, and other patients, have touched my life in ways I would never have imagined. Also, opportunity has been great.
When I was diagnosed, as a senior in high school, I thought I had my life all planned out, but God had different plans for me. I am very blessed to have such great
support in all of those who follow my blog, take the time to write notes and most importantly of all pray for me. One of the verses God has given me over the
last three years is:
Ecclesiates 3:1 “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the
heaven.”
At first it was very difficult just processing the whole fact that I had CANCER. I mean, I had often heard of other people getting it but never thought that
I would ever have it. At the Bill Rice Ranch, I made a decision in one of the services that I wanted God to work in my life in a different way that year than
He ever had before. Obviously, I had no idea what lay ahead just around the corner for me, but I can tell you that God is good, all of the time, and that He
is the source of all Comfort and Hope.
My name is Jared Joseph Boyd. I am the middle child of seven kids - four brothers and two sisters. I enjoy collecting stamps, playing my violin, school
(especially science-related subjects), singing in the choir at my church, photography and reading. I began having pain in my right hip back in March of '09 but merely thought that I was in need of a chiropractic adjustment not knowing that I had a tumor the size of a baseball in my pelvis! On a Thursday, after 3 weeks of waiting for my bone biopsy to return, we got the call: I had a rare form of pediatric cancer called Ewing’s Sarcoma. That call sent us into the world of pediatric cancer treatments.
The next day we went for all day testing at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis and met with an oncologist to discuss my options. By Monday I was
getting a central line placed to begin chemotherapy. The treatments would take 9 months, with a break after 6 to remove the tumor. I was in the hospital every
other week, usually 5 days at a time. The first 6 treatments were rough and there were entire weeks when I couldn’t eat. Hospital food is not good to begin
with, but when you add chemo it’s 10 times worse. The good thing though, after I left the hospital all my nausea usually cleared up and I was able to eat enough
to keep a healthy weight.
In December ‘09, I underwent surgery to remove the tumor and my right iliac crest, the doctor was able to get the entire tumor! Because of the extent of
my surgery I had to learn how to walk again, which was a very long, slow process. Thankfully, I recovered quickly and was able to go home on Christmas
Eve and spend Christmas with my family, which was a BIG answer to prayer. After I finished the rest of my treatments I went back that the doctors
which is when they told me I was “cancer free”.
That summer was very busy and exciting for our family. Our whole family went out west for my brother’s wedding and while we were there we got to visit Las Vegas, the Hoover Dam, and I began taking college classes and was feeling good, until the middle of November. My right hip, where I had surgery, had begun to hurt again and we thought a screw in my hip might have broken, but the pain kept getting worse and worse. On my 6 month, December check-up, the doctor discovered 2 new tumors in my hip, and later scans found 6 more nodules in my lungs. The biopsy confirmed that cancer had returned. Once again we met with my oncologist to discuss treatment plans, but they didn’t really have plans for re-lapse, and they said that even with treatment it didn’t look good. We decided on two
more rounds of different chemo’s while we looked for other forms of treatment.
In January ’11, I started several forms of alternative treatments. In April we removed one of the tumors in my back because of the pain, but in the scans after surgery the doctor said there were so many tumors in my lungs they couldn’t even count them all. The doctors wanted to put me on a different treatment just to keep me comfortable. Instead, we decided to try some alternative IV therapy, which I believe is one of the reasons (beside prayer) that I am still here. In late summer ‘11, the pain in my leg kept getting worse and worse until one day I fell and my leg started to go numb from my waist to my knees.
A scan showed the tumor in my hip was starting to encroach on my spinal cord and I was very close to being paralyzed. That weekend, which was 1 year ago last week, I began some emergency radiation and within 3 treatments the pain was gone! When they took a follow up scan a couple months later they couldn’t even find the tumor! After that tumor was taken care of they moved on to some of the bigger tumors in my lungs. This continued on and off until this past April. Over all, last winter and spring were not that bad. I was even able to attend classes again that spring.
I began having pain in my left side which wasn’t that bad so I ignored it, until one night when I laid down, all of a sudden I couldn’t get my breath and my
heart started racing! An X-ray found that the area where my lungs were suppose to be was completely filled up with fluid and my entire left lung had collapsed. I was admitted for an overnight stay to drain the fluid, but instead I was in the hospital for 21 days! My lung wouldn’t stop draining so they did another scan and said that there was a football size hematoma (blood clot) that need to be removed. Well, they went in to remove it and found out it wasn’t a hematoma, it was a
tumor. It was too big to mess with and the doctor even told my parents after the surgery that he didn’t think I would make it out of the hospital.
I recovered from the surgery, returned home and started radiation on that tumor, which according to the most recent scan has greatly shrunk! After we finished
the radiation, my doctor recommend more chemo, because she said I need something that would treat the whole body. So for the last couple months I have been undergoing more chemo. Still, this summer, besides the radiation, has been one of the best summers I’ve had. In June my brother Ben and sister-in-law Karina welcomed my beautiful little niece Kinley into the world. In July our family was able to go the Bill Rice Ranch for family week again. In
August my older sister Kate got married to Valentino, and my oldest brother Tim married Rachel. So I am very blessed to have a new brother-in-law, a new sister in law, and a new niece all in one year. I am also very blessed know all the people that I have met the last 3 years. If I had never had cancer I would have never met them: nurses, doctors, and other patients, have touched my life in ways I would never have imagined. Also, opportunity has been great.
When I was diagnosed, as a senior in high school, I thought I had my life all planned out, but God had different plans for me. I am very blessed to have such great
support in all of those who follow my blog, take the time to write notes and most importantly of all pray for me. One of the verses God has given me over the
last three years is:
Ecclesiates 3:1 “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the
heaven.”
At first it was very difficult just processing the whole fact that I had CANCER. I mean, I had often heard of other people getting it but never thought that
I would ever have it. At the Bill Rice Ranch, I made a decision in one of the services that I wanted God to work in my life in a different way that year than
He ever had before. Obviously, I had no idea what lay ahead just around the corner for me, but I can tell you that God is good, all of the time, and that He
is the source of all Comfort and Hope.