Happy Holidays everyone

It has been a long road, well more like a roller coaster, the Goliath to be exact, seems to go on and on.

I posted a few back that every time I post it is when someone has passed. First it was Rachel, then my grandpa, then Nathan. Nathan was a boy I met through the blog who reached out to me after reading my post after Rachel passed. He was diagnosed with the same thing as me last November. It was wonderful speaking with him. We would speak about what we were doing, watch, how we felt and comforted each other with our daily struggles. He, however, had been going down slowly and was unable to function normally. He did go on stage and give a speech for our cause at a Relay for Life event. Standing in front of hundreds of people and giving a speech is not something many people want to even attempt. Though his voice was gruff due to the cancer making it hard to enunciate words, he did great.

 It shocked me when his dad texted me to tell me he passed in the night. I still can’t believe he was gone so quick. Last week during Thanksgiving we were speaking about how I was getting some of my symptoms back and how I was going to full on keto, going to 80% fats. Jokily I added I may just melt some butter and start drinking it. He thought it was funny, and decided to call it my own butter beer. That was one of the last times I spoke to him, just a few day prior. As I said I was shocked to hear it happened so fast, one day here the next day gone. I had mentioned that we were each other’s support group and having someone who knew what I was feeling was a relief. As with how I felt after losing Rachel, this hurts as bad.

I miss them both.

I have a list of people in my head who I met through this cancer

Most of them are gone now.

I do believe in a Heaven, I do believe they are watching over their loved ones.

Rachel told me not to worry that everything will be fine.

Update on myself.

I have been on two new chemos: Lomustine and Verinostat. I have only been on one cycle of them but I definitely feel the effects of them. My plat count dropped greatly so the dr. has postponed treatment a week till they get back. The good news is it is doing something. Chemo is a balancing act where you try to make your body as toxic as you can.

on the fun front.

I went on a Disney Cruise with my family, it was one of the best cruises I’ve ever been on …only cruise I’ve ever been on. There was food, activities and shows that kept us going throughout the day. It was fantastic, definitely go if given a chance.

In lieu of thanksgiving a few weeks back I just want to write about how I’m Thankful for the people closest to me hopefully without getting too mushy.

Mom- The one and only, taking care of me when I wasn’t even 0 y/o. you have given me so much love in my 23 years. I have to try to think how you are feeling during this time. It must be incredibly difficult for you as well. I cannot imagine seeing my child in a situation I could not take care of myself. You are an incredible mom, great cook and wonderful figure in my life. I don’t know if I could handle this without your support.

Dad-Firstly thanks for being my primary driver. The road is safer with you at the wheel instead of me. This year has been a challenge for us both. We lost pawpaw and it isn’t how it used to be. I find myself wanting to go back to the spring break of was it 3^rd or 4^th grade having you hit me hundreds of pop flies and catching them. Thank you for being a pillar which I can always rely on to be there.

Jess- Little sister, I can’t believe you are 12 already. I was your age when you were born. Sheesh time flies. I want to hopefully be there for you your next 12 years and see you through adulthood. I got anxious and excited about the things you will do, the people you meet, and who you will become. I want to be there to metaphorically and possibly literally beat up the first boyfriend that breaks your heart. I know dad would have that handled if I can’t so that is comforting, but I would rather do the honor.

Shelby- my loving girlfriend. We were looking at a bunch of our old texts last night, geez how much we have grown. I know you are a great person, stronger than you think. Though we have our struggles, we can push through. Thank you for all your support you have given me this year. Staying with me through this hardship and showing me so much love.  

Victories and Setbacks

It's amazing to see how much change a year can be in a persons life. I feel so different from how I was a year before. At this time last year I was still getting accustomed to the idea that I had cancer, which even at times now, it was hard to believe.
When my friends are feeling down I tell them success breeds success. If you do everything the best you can than other things will fall into place. The one thing you have to do is force yourself to do the best you can no matter the situation or how you feel. Life will continue on, even when you just want it to stop. We can't let it go without us. We must pick ourselves up and keep pushing. Make the most out of the moment at hand.

yes, we bought matching shirts. Also this is my gf ,Shelby; she is short.

Recently I accomplished another thing on my bucket list. I had always wanted to see the Foo Fighters Live, and luckily last year I heard they were coming to Memphis. I bought the tickets then and there, almost a whole year in advance. I had also bought the insurance on those tickets because I was unsure if I would be in the condition to actually go...or even alive for that matter. I was blessed with no symptoms until the concert and was able to enjoy it to the fullest.   It was a small victory in my book. I was really enjoying the concert and I believe I also made Shelby into a true foo lover.


Cold is moving in and the heat is leaving for rest of the year. Sadly there will be no more sandals and shorts.  With the change in weather I also have some bad news. Last week I was beginning to have what felt like the onset of symptoms. I wasn't scheduled to see the doctor for another month, so I called in and asked how I should tackle this issue. We had an MRI done that night at 9pm and an appointment the next morning at 9am. They found that the pons have grown 3mm in both 2 of 3 dimensions. It isn't too much to be concerned about yet, but it means the cancer is growing faster than what the chemo is killing. It has probably become resistant to the chemo. 9 months of the stuff is pretty good for completely symptom free, so I am happy it lasted as long as it did. I suppose we will be going to the next chemo, or we may stay on this one until it is totally ineffective. We will find out next week when we visit my neuro-oncologist in Vanderbilt. There is still a lot to be thankful for even though the cancer seems to be gaining ground once again. I had 7 months of basically symptom free living, I enjoyed the summer months by playing tons of tennis and swimming. So I appreciate Temodar for that opportunity.

I have decided to ramp up my diet to new levels. I have been ingesting about 60-30-10 fat-protein-carbs the past few months. Much more lenient than what I was doing when I first started the diet. I haven't really been counting carbs as much as estimating and my protein to fat intake has been pretty lenient as well. I am pretty sure I haven't been going over my carbload but have been in-taking too much protein. Too much protein causes your body to use the excess in a process call neoglucogenesis, where the body makes glucose out of excess protein, which is probably why I have been testing low on ketones. My body produces them but not enough to full my body. So I have been eating grotesque amounts of healthy fats the past week and I am registering much higher ketones. However my Blood glucose level is still hovering around 80 so I need to do better. I decided to try and get my blood glucose to around 70 for 2 months and also change my diet to 80-15-5 fat-protein-carb. So hopefully I will see some effects. Already I am noticing symptom changes depending on my diet. I had wings yesterday with our friends, and while they were good they lacked fat. I felt more symptoms then than I did today upon eat huge amounts of fat and basically not having much symptoms. My guess is the glucose feeds the tumor and in turn creates inflammation which causes the symptoms. So while it may not control the growth it keeps the inflammation in check. our bodies are weird.

Ill update what we decide to do next week. I have a big week, 3 test for school, 2 doctor visit, 1 partridge in a pear tree. Keep on pushing forward and I will update soon.

Update 9/28

I know I know, I said I would update this blog more.

It has been a hard few months, no doubt. Losing an authority figure and a dear friend so close together just seems surreal.

I mentioned in the last post that I found Rachel through her blog and how much that friendship helped me to where I am today.
 That post somehow reached a guy in New Jersey who is going through this journey the same way Rachel and I were going through.  Nathan O. is a 20 year old who has my issue, dipg. He reached out to me because of the last post.
 Once Rachel passed, I felt alone again, a wolf pack of one, and while this wolf pack is for sickly young adults fighting a rare despicable cancer, I am glad we found each other for support. I told Nathan about my diet, the ketogenic diet for those who don't know, it is a low carb high fat diet which is supposed to slow and maybe even stop the cancer.  He has decided to give it a try which is awesome.


I had another MRI this month and I am please to announce that there has been no changes or growth in the tumor in the last 3 months. It is a small victory but we needed some good news.
I am back in school taking 4 classes: Calculus, Statistics, Marketing and.... Cello
Yep, Cello. I decided to rent a cello and learn how to play it along with how to read music. I am interested in learning much more about music.
Tennis is going well, I am picking up a kick serve though I still am learning to perform it reliably.
I want to get back to work, but I am stressed as much as I can handle right now. I will try to get back into work if I hold steady for another month to help with the holiday season.

These two songs have been reverberating with me a lot recently. The first reminds me to cherish moments and those close to me. The second is pretty self explanatory. When I went to see this band in concert I had Nathan S. and Shelby there with me. It was an amazing concert and I am glad I could share it with them.

Fly a Little Higher

It seems that every other blog I post is about another person passing away. This one will be extremely hard to write because I have lost two people that the meant more to me than I know how to eloquently explain. My first loss came earlier last month. My Pawpaw passed away July 12, an earlier Sunday morning. He was fighting liver failure for about a month due to some complications with a surgery done years before. The other person was my dear friend Rachel Stratton. For you that don’t know her she was the first person I found who also had my cancer. She finally finished her fight with the cancer on August 23 after three years of battling. She also passed away on a Sunday morning.

Both of these people had major effects on my life and them no longer being on this earth brings me great pain and a heavy heart.

I lost my other pawpaw, pawpaw Hammonds, due to pancreatic cancer when I was a freshmen in high school. I spent once a week during the summer with him during the summers. Being an army brat I lived fairly far away and this week with him was the most I could have.  After he passed I had wished I spent more time. But he taught me a few things in life, my favorite being always try new things. I have internalized that lesson and it has served me well on my adventure.

I learned to cherish my time with my other grandpa from my wish of spending more time with pawpaw Hammonds. Both of these men lived lives that somewhat mirrored the other. Both had successful careers in the Army, both became educators and principles of schools improving the lives of many children. Both had wonderful families and an incredible spouse. Both were Strong men with values and morals which they passed on to their children and their children’s children. They were also both extremely kindhearted, both would give their all to help a stranger in need. The comparisons can go on and on, the main point is these men were amazing role models and the best Grandpa’s I could ask for.

One of my fondest memories of my Pawpaw Cochran was when I was about eleven years old. I was in cub scouts and I needed a few more badges to become a boy scout. We saw one badge in the handbook for going camping, and being from Alabama we thought that was right up our alley. That summer we went down to Pawpaw’s farm and set up camp. We had two trucks holding up a jury-rigged tent and an amazing camp fire. We fished and my dad stayed up most the night shooting at water moccasins. The next morning Pawpaw made the most delicious eggs and bacon over the embers of our fire. It was quality time I wouldn’t trade for the world.

 This would come to be known as the Cochran Camp out and would become an annual event for the whole family. The rest of the family would one-up our two-bit camp site by bringing trailers and building a dock for the lake. I don’t think we ever really knew the term “roughing it” after that, with our a/c and satellite tv. However, the fish fries were delicious.

I will miss being in the living room with both my grandparents watching tv and listening to them yell across the room different things because of my grandma’s bad hearing. It always made me laugh, the old saying “you remind me of an old married couple” rang as clear as a bell when it came to those two.

My Mawmaw said it best at Pawpaw’s funeral. When someone says nothing last forever, she corrected him. She responded, “Love does”. I will always love you Pawpaw and as I told you the last time I saw you, “I’ll see you soon”. Be it a year or 80 years, time no longer affects Pawpaw, and I am sure that I will meet him again.

Pawpaw and I caught the same fish with two hooks. Greedy little fella grabbed my bait and then swam over to pawpaw's and took his too.See that little dirt patch behind the right side of the truck? that was the location for our first camp out.

The other great loss on my heart right now was my dear friend Rachel Stratton. Rachel was diagnosed with DIPG over three years ago. She fought a long fight with grace and courage. If you ask anyone around her, she had a sassiness that had no compare and the ability to make you laugh no matter the situation.

She was an extremely vital person in my own journey with dipg. Once I was diagnosed, I felt alone, no one knew what I was going through quite to the level that I needed. Dipg is extremely rare, and even rarer at my age. Brain cancer is brain cancer, but the symptoms are different, the procedure is different and I needed someone with my issue exactly. I was on a ride home from visiting my Grandparents and telling Pawpaw about my cancer. I was furiously looking for others with this cancer, most of my research gave me results of more children which continuously broke my heart. However, 30 minutes from home I ran across the page prayersforrachel.com about a 19 year old girl who was just about to start her second year after diagnosis. I read all her blog that night from start to finish, her journey thus far. On the last page at the time I commented on the page and tried to reach out and communicate with her, I knew it could have been a long shot but I was so exasperated to find someone else after about a half month of searching.  I also sent her an email with my contact information, later that night I got a text from her. She was extremely sad to hear about my situation but was happy to meet someone else in the same boat. That first night we probably texted for about an hour. I read through them the other night when she passed, seeing how mentally broke down I was and how much she truly helped me. I was under the impression that I would be dead within a few months and here was another girl who has made it a few years and was still kicking. It gave me hope and she eased my extremely troubled mind. We Skype'd a few times and would text regularly. She had me try some pretty nasty holistic medicine which I’m still on the fence about including black seed oil with honey. Stuff taste like mint and chili powder. I still take it from time to time.

Having Rachel gave me the hope and the support I was looking for in my time of need. Only she would have been able to give me that, because no one else had her experiences and her personality. She was truly one of a kind and marched to her own drum. I am forever grateful.

One reason I am doing this blog is because she inspired me with hers. It has been an amazing way to type out how I was feeling and reaching people that may one day need me the same way I needed her. 

Rachel and her family were planning an early Christmas this year, it was planned for the 23rd, however Rachel passed early that morning. Her sister Lauren stated, " I will surely miss her sass, wit, and unhealthy online shopping addiction; but am ecstatic that she received the best early Christmas present she could have asked for." 

These people have played incredible roles in my life and have shaped who I am and how I see the world. I will miss them constantly. Rachel told me to go listen to the song Clouds, by Zach Sobiech. A boy in his last days who turned to music to comfort those around him. The song rang true to me when I was first diagnosed because it made me think of my family, now it has more meaning. I imagine Rachel telling everyone everything is okay, and she will just be “flying a little higher”. I see that for everyone I have loved and lost now, they are just flying “a little” higher. Life is fleeting, live every day and cherish the moments, relish even the tough ones. 

"I can do hard things"

-Rachel Stratton

 “You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” 

-Anne Lamott

Clouds by Zach Sobiech-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDC97j6lfyc

 This is a song that played right after clouds.  I just found it and it made me feel all sort of emotions. It is between Zach and his friend Sammy and it is beautiful. 
Fix Me Up by Zach Sobiech and Sammy Brown - A Firm Handshake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvSYZHmhIAM 

"I can do hard things"

-Rachel Stratton