When I was 11 years old I was having stomach problems during a summer baseball game. I felt like throwing up from the pain (and maybe a little because we lost a game).

Going to the doctor was about our only option, that night I was very sick and tired of hurting. Once a couple of tests are preformed the RN comes in to tell me my appendix had ruptured, and I must have surgery that night.

So my bad night is already getting worse, then to my surprise the nurse says “turn to the side”, ok? are you giving me a back rub? Not quite the back rub I was expecting. So the nurse shoves a pill the opposite way it is intended to be shoved and my bad night is around a 5/10.

Anesthesia was given to me in a very seducing flavor and it made me feel like God was taking me right then and there. I wake up with a decent amount of pain to say the least, and the first thing I can remember is the look on my parents faces. I am thinking “Why do they look worried, I am alive I think.”

My doctor had pulled my parents aside and had told them during the surgery to remove my exploded appendix, he had found a tumor on my liver. My surgeon had taken the tumor off during the surgery although he didn’t feel it was cancerous. Results come back and I have liver cancer. Good news is they caught it early. I’m 11 though, and did not quite understand the situation, this is scary for a child.

I will never complain about my amount of chemo, only 4 rounds. Chemo was tough, no one told me you throw up and get weak. thanks mom So I’m sitting with a needle in my chest getting rounds of chemo and playing basketball in the hospital. Also decided to purchase beef jerky that day in the gift shop. I am glad to say I will never try that again. So to this day I cant eat beef jerky and quarter pounders from throwing them up so much during my chemo.

I remember playing in a baseball game shortly after my chemo, I had dropped to 70 pounds. Don’t bring this up to my mom either. My dad was the coach and I can imagine what that talk was like with my parents for letting me do that. I also got to be a child in the Make-A-Wish foundation. I choose to go to the BCS 2007 National Championship game. sigh. Ohio State loses 41-14, and that trip never gets brought up again.

I was then chose as a speaker for Make-A-Wish at a fundraiser in Columbus. I had to speak in front of 500 devastated buckeye fans on how my time was in Arizona watching a spanking from our new coach Urban Meyer.

Fun stuff. Football is serious in Ohio

Out of all this stuff that happened, the one thing I truly learned was this world is designed. My surgeon was created, my life was on the line and someone pulled through. Someone up there is watching me, and that is the greatest news of all.

Not that I was in remission, not that I had been cleared of cancer. But the simple fact that God looked down and saved me, my surgeon worked extra carefully and saved me. My appendix saved me. From that day forward, life was never taken for granted. God was never taken for granted, Mom & Dad were never taken for granted. I hope one day we can all live every second of this life to the fullest, and love those around us and above us. Then my second chance at life, would be successful.