5 months ago, my boyfriend Jayden and I found out that he has a very rare type of liver cancer called Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma. This type of cancer has been diagnosed in 94 people in the past 20 years at the MD Anderson hospital.

Here's a little background on how we found out:

On July 20th, we took him to the ER because a few days before, he had gotten me worried with how sick he looked. He called out of work those three days, and on Sunday the 20th, we took him to the ER. Here, they did a CT scan of his stomach and found a very large mass attached to his liver. The doctors were very concerned it was liver cancer but couldn't give specifics quite yet without knowing more. That night, we drove across the state to go to a better hospital, and the morning of the 21st, we had a consult with a doctor who specializes in liver cancer. Here, he explained that it wasn't malignant and was a tumor. The tumor was the size of a grapefruit. We began to have many meetings and calls with more doctors until he had his surgery on August 1st.

After surgery, his doctor explained that since they had seen him last a week prior, the tumor had grown 1.5 inches bigger, which was visible on his stomach. The surgery took 3.5 hours and was a very large surgery requiring a second liver specialist. After surgery, Jayden spent 5 days in the hospital recovering and learning to gain his walking strength back. We had still yet to receive the answer of whether the tumor was cancerous or not. On August 9th, we received word that it was cancer. The doctors did a biopsy and found that it was called Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma. This type of cancer is extremely rare, and it's hard to say numbers-wise, but they estimate about 60 cases a year in the US get diagnosed every year, which is around 1 in every 5,000,000 people.

Because this cancer is so uncommon, the doctors have very few answers and solutions to help fight and prevent this cancer from coming back. The only known study done on this type of cancer was a total of 94 people 12 years ago. The survival rate after cancer is 5 years, and if the patient did do a chemo option, their lifespan would span up to 10 years after surgery. The likely hood of the cancer coming back is also around 50%-80%. The results of this were shocking, and if Jayden does end up doing chemo, there is a risk of us possibly having a hard time having kids in the future or not having any at all. We still have so many unknown questions and answers to get, and we are just starting our lives together as a 20 and 21-year-old couple. Anything would help; expenses are extreme, and even money for a meal would help. Thank you, everyone, for hearing our story, and I hope this can also help spread the word of this type of cancer so we might be able to get more answers and ways to help fight this off.