Home > Film Project > Participant Bios > Travis
Partricipant Bio: Travis
I had a pretty normal life up until 2003. I graduated from College, got my first real "Design" job at a big high-tech company, got married and started planning my life as a full-fledged indepedent adult!
Then "The Cough" started. In the Fall of 2003 I started coughing, and never stopped. It was everything you could imagine except Cancer ? it was pneumonia, bronchitis, allergies... Then one clinic doctor I saw in January of 2004 had the idea to send me to get an x-ray. The next lunch break I would come back to the office to calmly deliver the diagnosis. "It's just a Lymphoma...whatever that is."
(Okay so even at 23 I wasn't the fastest car on the track...But Dammit Jim I'm a Designer, not a Doc...tor?)
One Google Search later I suddenly had to change my pants. Lymphoma was CANCER!?!? No wonder all my co-workers started crying when I told them... I'm glad I didn't tell my Mom first!
So...CANCER!...of the...lymphatic system. Right. Um...what?
I eventually found out (it took about two months from initial diagnosis to ACTUAL, treatable diagnosis) that I had an orange-sized tumour growing around my windpipe ? hence the gut-wrenching cough. Lame. The prognosis was good, if I got some pretty intense chemo for six months followed by radiation. 2004 was not shaping up to be a good year.
The year went slowly. Eight rounds of heavy chemo would hopefully break up my Stage IV tumour, followed by radiation if it wasn't completely gone. My new wife did her best to deal with me and keep working to keep us afloat. I worked as long as I could, but after four months I couldn't keep getting on the bus to go to work every morning, so I stayed home. I can't count the number of days I spent on my couch feeling like death, playing Final Fantasy XI. (I hate that game.)
By November the tumour had shrank, but was still there. Radiation came in the form of 20 treatments over a month directly to the area. I still say the burn it left looked like Utah...
By January of 2005 I was "back on track". Back to work, no more Cancer. No more troubles...right? Well, not quite. The year had been hard on me and my relationship, and by the end of 2005, she left. I had now officially lost everything I had before Cancer; life, love, and love of life.
Since then I've had to redefine what it means to "reintrajectorize? ? to regain a "normal" life. I'm still on that path, just trying to find my way in the world now that I've had this "gift" that some would call it of a second chance. I do see the world in an entirely different light now. I see people, humanity, and everything more clearly. Hopefully this all leads to something great, but I won't know until I get there, will I?
Our Mission
To help young adult survivors of severe illness or injury identify, process and apply life lessons through adventure activites.