Diagnosis in Juan’s words, “It was a process to get answers.” Juan works at a lumbermill and spends much of the day on his feet. He had bad pains in his left pelvic area and visited the emergency room multiple times for months, but nothing was showing up in scans. During his last visit to the ER, doctors saw a mass in an x-ray. A follow up CT-scan found the tumor. He started chemotherapy and had 36 rounds of radiation. He finished chemotherapy in December 2018.
Unfortunately the pain returned. During a check-up, they decided to do a biopsy with 25 samples. They found live cancer cells. He underwent surgery on October 8, 2020 to remove as much cancer as possible without doing a hip replacement.
Juan credits his family as his biggest supports. He has two kids, a wife and a dog. They bring “so much joy and keep [him] moving to finish the race [they] are in.” He believes without their support he wouldn’t be able to keep moving forward. Juan’s advice to others: “Think positive! Don’t let the negativity get you. Let the negativity get you, that’s when you are down. When you think positive, it’s when positive things happen.” Sadly we lost Juan in 2021.