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Hi friends, family, friends of friends; whomever you may be thank you for taking time to read this.
Those of you who know John, know that riding is his life. It’s one of his greatest passions and he truly lives to ride. With riding and specifically stunting, things don’t always go as planned and accidents do happen. About 2 months ago now John had been working relentlessly on landing this specific trick and after many attempts, he finally did it! All of that hard work and persistence to land the trick had paid off! He was elated! One minor detail: while working on this stunt, during one of the runs the bike hit the ground a little harder than he anticipated and he was hit with a brute force to the groin area. Any man knows that pain is TOP notch. Extremely extremely painful but, John being the man he is, continued on practicing his stunt, trying to ignore the pain and make the landing perfect. And of course that is just what he did. We left the stunt spot that day with big smiles because John finally landed the stunt he had worked so hard to perfect. Sadly, the pain in his groin continued for a couple weeks from that one hard landing. John had some swelling to one of his testicles at this time but not thinking it was anything to be seriously concerned about, we kept an eye out for anything not “normal” in the following days...
Fast forward about a week and some of you may have remember seeing a video of John and I doing our first tandem wheelie on September 22, 2019. As exciting as this moment and day was for us, we had no idea what was in store for us. Upon landing the tandem stunt, John further injured his groin area and later that evening we decided it was probably a good idea to at least get him checked out to make sure it was nothing serious. So, off to the emergency room we went.
What came next was not what we were expecting at all... Suddenly, what felt like in the blink of an eye, John was being rushed into emergency surgery. Surgery?! I was in shock. But, we trusted in the hospital staff and knew this was what we had to do at this time. Surgery went great and we were so relieved. Doctors were amazed that John hadn’t come in sooner for the pain. It was like nothing they had ever seen before, is what the doctor described. Truthfully, we just couldn’t wait to get out of the hospital and be on the road to recovery and getting life back to “normal.” We had a follow up post op appointment in two weeks. Count down started!
2 weeks post operation, at his follow up appointment we were smacked in the face with words we never thought we’d ever hear. Especially not at Johns young age of 28. “We found a cancerous tumor in the testicle that was removed during surgery.” The words hit like a freight train. I’m pretty sure at this point my jaw had made its permanent home on the floor. We could not believe what we were hearing. CANCER?! What we thought was going to be an appointment releasing John to begin physical therapy and get back to living his life, was quite the opposite. We were entering into the fight of his life now.
Since this appointment John has had to have blood testing every 2 weeks to monitor his tumor markers and ct scans to monitor his lymph nodes. While the scans are not actively showing any other tumors, his tumor marker scans don’t seem to be going down like the doctors would like to see. The next step for John right now is surgery. He is scheduled for the R.P.L.N.D surgery on Friday December 27, 2019. This surgery will remove all of the lymph nodes in his groin area. It is an extremely invasive surgery but we are more than confident in our surgeon team and doctors. The surgery will force him out of work for at least 6 weeks and force us to rely on a single income to support our household.
It’s time for us to stop being so stubborn. It’s not going to be easy in any way and the bills are only going to keep adding up, which in turn will only add more stress. My biggest concern is making sure John doesn’t have any added stress and is able to focus solely on preparing for surgery and then recovery.
We are extremely grateful for you taking the time to read through this and of course, anything and everything donated. 100% of the proceeds will be used towards John’s medical expenses to help us stay afloat while he is out of work. If you are not able to donate monetarily at this time, we encourage all of the positive thoughts, prayers, and energy you’re able to send our way. I will continue to post updates as things happen to keep everyone in the loop. Thank you again♥️
#koopskickincancer
Venmo Username: @Emily-Hebert-5
Venmo email: [email redacted]
PayPal: [email redacted]
A note to the men reading this:
I hope that in reading this you are propelled to take your health seriously. What has been the most eye opening thing in all of this is that: had John not experienced those minor hiccups while stunting, we would have never known that cancer was alive & well living in his body. We thank the universe every single day for opening our eyes to this and allowing us the chance to fight. Cancer does not discriminate. 1 out of 250 men and boys will be diagnosed with this disease during their lifetime. The average age of diagnosis is 33 years old. I strongly encourage you to check yourself out. Google what to look for & how to check yourself. Make those yearly check up appointments. Ask questions at those appointments. You have to be your own #1 advocate for your health. Men seem to be more guarded in their health and tend to wait until it’s “really really bad” before getting checked out. If you have even the slightest idea that something is abnormal, make an appointment to visit your doctor. It could absolutely change your life. This is the only life we’ve got.
Those of you who know John, know that riding is his life. It’s one of his greatest passions and he truly lives to ride. With riding and specifically stunting, things don’t always go as planned and accidents do happen. About 2 months ago now John had been working relentlessly on landing this specific trick and after many attempts, he finally did it! All of that hard work and persistence to land the trick had paid off! He was elated! One minor detail: while working on this stunt, during one of the runs the bike hit the ground a little harder than he anticipated and he was hit with a brute force to the groin area. Any man knows that pain is TOP notch. Extremely extremely painful but, John being the man he is, continued on practicing his stunt, trying to ignore the pain and make the landing perfect. And of course that is just what he did. We left the stunt spot that day with big smiles because John finally landed the stunt he had worked so hard to perfect. Sadly, the pain in his groin continued for a couple weeks from that one hard landing. John had some swelling to one of his testicles at this time but not thinking it was anything to be seriously concerned about, we kept an eye out for anything not “normal” in the following days...
Fast forward about a week and some of you may have remember seeing a video of John and I doing our first tandem wheelie on September 22, 2019. As exciting as this moment and day was for us, we had no idea what was in store for us. Upon landing the tandem stunt, John further injured his groin area and later that evening we decided it was probably a good idea to at least get him checked out to make sure it was nothing serious. So, off to the emergency room we went.
What came next was not what we were expecting at all... Suddenly, what felt like in the blink of an eye, John was being rushed into emergency surgery. Surgery?! I was in shock. But, we trusted in the hospital staff and knew this was what we had to do at this time. Surgery went great and we were so relieved. Doctors were amazed that John hadn’t come in sooner for the pain. It was like nothing they had ever seen before, is what the doctor described. Truthfully, we just couldn’t wait to get out of the hospital and be on the road to recovery and getting life back to “normal.” We had a follow up post op appointment in two weeks. Count down started!
2 weeks post operation, at his follow up appointment we were smacked in the face with words we never thought we’d ever hear. Especially not at Johns young age of 28. “We found a cancerous tumor in the testicle that was removed during surgery.” The words hit like a freight train. I’m pretty sure at this point my jaw had made its permanent home on the floor. We could not believe what we were hearing. CANCER?! What we thought was going to be an appointment releasing John to begin physical therapy and get back to living his life, was quite the opposite. We were entering into the fight of his life now.
Since this appointment John has had to have blood testing every 2 weeks to monitor his tumor markers and ct scans to monitor his lymph nodes. While the scans are not actively showing any other tumors, his tumor marker scans don’t seem to be going down like the doctors would like to see. The next step for John right now is surgery. He is scheduled for the R.P.L.N.D surgery on Friday December 27, 2019. This surgery will remove all of the lymph nodes in his groin area. It is an extremely invasive surgery but we are more than confident in our surgeon team and doctors. The surgery will force him out of work for at least 6 weeks and force us to rely on a single income to support our household.
It’s time for us to stop being so stubborn. It’s not going to be easy in any way and the bills are only going to keep adding up, which in turn will only add more stress. My biggest concern is making sure John doesn’t have any added stress and is able to focus solely on preparing for surgery and then recovery.
We are extremely grateful for you taking the time to read through this and of course, anything and everything donated. 100% of the proceeds will be used towards John’s medical expenses to help us stay afloat while he is out of work. If you are not able to donate monetarily at this time, we encourage all of the positive thoughts, prayers, and energy you’re able to send our way. I will continue to post updates as things happen to keep everyone in the loop. Thank you again♥️
#koopskickincancer
Venmo Username: @Emily-Hebert-5
Venmo email: [email redacted]
PayPal: [email redacted]
A note to the men reading this:
I hope that in reading this you are propelled to take your health seriously. What has been the most eye opening thing in all of this is that: had John not experienced those minor hiccups while stunting, we would have never known that cancer was alive & well living in his body. We thank the universe every single day for opening our eyes to this and allowing us the chance to fight. Cancer does not discriminate. 1 out of 250 men and boys will be diagnosed with this disease during their lifetime. The average age of diagnosis is 33 years old. I strongly encourage you to check yourself out. Google what to look for & how to check yourself. Make those yearly check up appointments. Ask questions at those appointments. You have to be your own #1 advocate for your health. Men seem to be more guarded in their health and tend to wait until it’s “really really bad” before getting checked out. If you have even the slightest idea that something is abnormal, make an appointment to visit your doctor. It could absolutely change your life. This is the only life we’ve got.