Stand by Cody in his Battle with Cancer and Epilepsy

Hi everyone! My name is Amy Sue and I have been friends with Cody Johnson nearly 20 years. As most of you know, Cody is the beloved, hardworking Leprechaun scheming up all the Goodtimes. Cody is not one to share his personal information, and he is the last person who will ever ask for help, but sometimes good friends force you to do things you don't want to do because they love you.

It may be a surprise and news to many of you but Cody was diagnosed with Bone Cancer in June of 2024. You may have noticed that he has been walking with a limp since late 2021. Unbeknownst to him at the time, he had developed a blood bone plasma tumor known as a Plasmacytoma in his left hip which led to an injury doing yard work in December of 2021, causing him to noticeably limp. He was not able to be seen for this injury until September of 2022, and his doctor at the time misdiagnosed him with a slipped disc. After ordering the wrong X-Ray and MRI, the tumor went undetected and continued to grow.

18 months went by with Cody trying various approaches to manage pain - two steroid shots in his SI joint, massages, acupuncture, three separate rounds of physical therapy attempts - all the while his limp and daily pain level was worsening. All the while continuing to work labor intensive production gigs/ events in order to make income.

Brenna, watching all of this unfold in real time, eventually decided to push for more imaging of his hip. She got him an appointment with an orthopedic specialist, suspecting that he may have a labral tear in his hip joint which could require surgery. But, before he was able to see that doctor, a new problem popped up.

On the morning of March 27th of last year, after a particularly exhausting month of production gigs, Cody experienced a loss of consciousness event while driving to work in the morning. Miraculously, he was able to pull over to the side of the road and stop the truck in a safe location while he was unconscious. He came to, covered in sweat, and slumped over at the wheel.

This event put his whole “hip problem” on hold and triggered a slew of specialist visits, new tests, and brain and heart imaging to try and figure out a cause. Two neurologists that he saw ultimately came to the same conclusion that this was a “one-off event.” He was instructed not to drive for 3 months, and to come back and see them if anything similar every happened in the future.

After about 6 weeks of running that problem down, Cody pivoted back to investigating the case of his limp. He was finally able to get a hip MRI done in May of 2024, at which point a “large osseous destructive lesion” was discovered in his left pelvis. After additional biopsy and Two years and six months after the onset of his limp, and the initial injury in the yard, he was diagnosed with a solitary plasmacytoma and sent to Texas Oncology for treatment.

In July and August of 2024, Cody underwent 5 weeks of daily targeted radiation therapy which was ultimately very successful at knocking back the tumor. Unfortunately, this left the bones in his hip full of holes where the tumor had previously been growing. Because he was still limping and wanted to do physical therapy for that, his doctor recommended that he have surgery to essentially fill those bone holes back in so they would be strong enough to do more high impact training, lest he break/ shatter the remains.

This surgery was scheduled for December 27th, 2024, but on December 21st, Cody had another loss of consciousness event, this time while showering. The surgery was immediately put on hold. It having happened at the end of the year meant insurance delays and waiting to be seen by doctors who were out on vacation. Meanwhile, Cody was again instructed not to drive for three more months. After several more tests, specialists, imaging, and two more “incidents,” doctors cleared Cody for the hip surgery, but also diagnosed him with epilepsy and put him on anti-seizure medication.

By late February, Cody’s oncologist declared his cancer to officially be in remission, and on March 27th (last Friday) he underwent the hip surgery, which he is currently recovering from and awaiting the go-ahead to return to physical therapy.

He is still not driving and the investigation into the cause of his seizures is still ongoing. As you can imagine, this has put incredible emotional and financial strain on him and Brenna. Even now being in remission, Cody will continue to require follow up imaging and testing every 3-6 months for the next few years and will always have a 1 in 3 lifetime chance of being diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, thankfully and luckily bone marrow biopsy have come back clean so far.

The road to recovery has already been extremely hard and long and Cody still has a long way to go. It is unknown how long it will be until he is able to work and get behind the wheel of a vehicle. He is very sorry for not telling many of you sooner, he just didn’t want to worry anyone, and didn’t want to go public until he had heard the word remission and surgery was over. He also has a great fear this will lead to a loss of job opportunities in the future so he would like all past, present, and future employers and coworkers to know he is still the toughest and hardest working guy they know.

If you know Cody, you know he would maybe rather disappear or become invisible than tell you any of this and ask for help. He and Brenna are incredibly grateful for the support many of you have already shown to them in keeping this as private as possible. Let’s now come together as a community and help them through this difficult time in their lives. Every little bit helps, even just sharing this campaign to widen the net of support! Thank you!