For those of you who may not know him, this is the story of George Rohlman's battle with Leukemia and his amazing faith in the face of death.

George was an active, healthy man. He never smoked or drank. He worked out, he took vitamins, he was involved in his church. When he began to have back pain in July of 2013 nobody could have known what lay ahead. After many x-rays and scans of his back doctors sent George for blood testing. Later that week he got the call that would change his, and all our lives forever. George had leukemia. He was shocked. We were shocked. How could someone who lived so healthy be so sick? From the very beginning George made sure we all understood that no matter how this turned out, God is great and he's in control. He told us if it was God's will that he be healed then he would be healed and if not then it wasn't God's will and that was ok because he would be going home to Jesus.
He started an immediate chemotherapy regimen and did all the tests to find a bone marrow donor match. After a short time a call came that the doctors had found a near perfect match from an anonymous donor. We were elated! He started all the necessary preparations for the transplant. The weeks went by and finally, the day before Thanksgiving, he was given his bone marrow transplant.
If you don't know what a bone marrow transplant entails I can sum it up in one word, "struggle". For weeks he couldn't hold down food and he had no energy but slowly he regained his strength. He had to stay in a special offsite "house" for people recovering from bone marrow transplants for 100 days while he built up a new immune system. He didn't like being confined to this place because it was hours from home but he spent much of his time in the scriptures and studied his devotionals. He ministered to every doctor and nurse he had contact with. His faith was unwavering and got him through the weeks of sickness. Doctors said he recovered remarkably fast and was ahead of schedule for many of his benchmarks. When he was finally released to go home in the spring of 2014 it looked like this nightmare was behind us. 
The family started planning for the future. George was recovering well and his youngest son would be graduating high school in just a few short weeks and it seemed like a perfect summer to celebrate. And then it happened. The week of graduation the pain in his back returned. It was fast and crippling. Within days everyone's worst fears were confirmed, the leukemia was back. Again we were all falling apart but George reminded us that God is good and that He has a plan. 
As soon as graduation was over George returned to the hospital for another intense round of chemo while the doctors went over the options with he and his wife. It was ultimately decided that George would apply for an experimental treatment being tested in New York. It was a long shot, there were a lot of applicants and very few spots. When New York accepted George into the treatment group we were over the moon! One spot open and it went to George!
He began the preparations to go to New York over the summer and by the first week of September it was time to go. He knew he would have to stay for 3 or 4 weeks and he didn't like being away from home but he did what he had to do. Well that 3 or 4 weeks turned into more like 8 weeks due to complications from getting sick but he was finally able to come home. We were all excited to have him back home but we waited with bated breath to see if the experimental treatment had worked. Again George told us that God is good and that everything was going to happen according to His will.
We began preparing for the holidays. As Thanksgiving approached George was going on regular walks and trying to get some weight back on, all the treatments had taken their toll on his body. Everything seemed to be going well and every day he seemed to be getting a little stronger. Then the pain returned. The night before Thanksgiving he started to feel it. We all wanted to believe it was something else, a pulled muscle or over doing it in his exercise. That wasn't the case. The first week of December he was back in the hospital and we heard what we all feared, the New York treatment wasn't working.
Faced with few options George and his wife did the only thing they COULD do, they prayed. George decided after much thought and prayer that the best option was to do rounds of chemo until it stopped giving him good quality time. He did a round of chemo in the hospital. Previous rounds of chemo had given him a good amount of quality time between rounds but after a year and a half of chemo, a transplant, and experimental treatment his body just didn't bounce back like it had before. He came home two days before Christmas so he could spend it at home with his wife and three sons, his daughter in law,  and his two grandchildren. He was told he didn't have long to be at home. 
By the first week of January he was back in the hospital for pain. This time there was no going home. The leukemia was very aggressive. The doctors had him in an isolated area for bone marrow patients where his grandchildren could not even visit. It was decided to move him to a hospice house to live out what days he had left so that he could spend them surrounded with the people who loved him. There he stayed for a little over two weeks. We all got to spend time with him. More importantly we all got to pray with him. His faith was unwaivering and even on the last day he was conscious he couldn't really talk but he listened to his favorite Christian songs and raised his hands in worship.
George went home to his Heavenly Father on January 23, 2015 at 55 years of age. 

That is George's story. It's not his WHOLE story, his life was filled with such joy and adventure that to write it all down would take a lifetime, this is just the story of his battle with leukemia. The entirety of his life story lives on with his wife Deborah and his three sons, Joseph, Austin, and Aaron and his sisters Deborah and Constance and brother Ronald. It also lives on in the lives of everyone he touched. All the lives that he impacted with his faith and his wisdom.

This fund is to pay for George's final expenses. After a lengthy battle with leukemia the last thing Deb needs to be worried about is bills. I have set this up in hopes that at least a portion of his final expenses can be covered so that the family can concentrate on all of the wonderful memories of George and not be haunted by the financial reminders of the last year and a half.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please share this so that other's may read about George's strength and faith. And remember, God is good!