Living The College Life

I'm going to college at Eastern Arizona and it's my 2nd semester. I'm liking it so far.. new rommates who are awesome but it's kinda been a different experience for me then my first semester. My first one was a lot of fun but I couldn't really tell you what I did. ha I had a lot of new experiences, started my semester with my boyfriend of 5 months and having a boyfriend around me everyday was a new thing for me. I had a lot to learn but wouldn't trade the hard times for anything because we laugh at them now and that's what made us stronger. Learning to just get along when it's the time of the month, or giving him his "guy time", or not losing yourself in the process of learning who you are together. New school and new friends was hard at first, I was so excited to meet new people but when you are alone it's hard to put yourself out there and be out of your comfort zone. But we spent our semester watching movies mainly..ha surprisingly enough we never were bored. We went to the pond that had a rope swing, we went on double dates with his roommates Sam Miller and his lady Brooke Young, tried going to the hot springs but the were dry, play basketball for who pays for the date or watching his games cuz he was on an institute basketball team, and spending most of our weekends in Tucson with my family or in Phoenix with Josh and Aubrey. I also got my cosmetology license last semester. By the end of the semester Rusty had rolled his ankle, thought he got a hernia but just was a swollen lymph node, got his wisdom teeth taken out and tried to recover from a basketball injury that landed him straight on his back so he had headaches for 3 months straight and finally got into a physical therapist that loosened his back muscles that let his headaches finally go away. He has a had a crazy year and I thought I was crippled! But that news has not ended.

The 19th of January 2011 a Wednesday night I got a text saying " Babe I'm at the ER right now because my side has been in so much pain." Now let me tell you Rusty is a stubborn guy who hates the hospital and doctors so this was surprising to me that he went in without me yelling at him that he needs to. But two weeks before this he had realized that one of his testicles was larger than his other one. His parents had thought it was swollen from working since Rusty has been doing construction for the last month or so and so his mom told him to wait and keep an eye on it and if it doesn't go down he should go in. Well on Wednesday all he kept thinking was "you need to go in this isn't right you need to go in." The doctors took an ultrasound and a urine sample and was joking with his sister Serene about having cancer but one doc was like oh you are too young to have that. But Rusty started to notice a difference in the doctors and new something was wrong. The doc came in and said "I'm going to be blunt with you..You have Testicular Cancer." When he left Rusty looked at his sister and broke down, at that moment Rusty's life had taken a turn he never expected. Who does? Who would ever think something like that would happen to YoU! Rusty immediately let his parents know the news..and i get another text saying babe can you come down here has soon as possible. I'm still in Thatcher going to school and he went back home to save money and work so we had been doing the long distance thing and I was just up there the weekend before. When I got that text I knew something was wrong and the next text was "please call when you can." Well I called 4 times and he never answered I started to worry and then another text saying hold on babe. Rusty tried to compose himself before he called and got a blessing but I still didn't know what he had found out. Then I get his call and the second I said "hey" he broke down and cried for a few minutes while I'm like "hey what's wrong, what did they say?" (Now I'll tell you very few people have seen him cry he's not a crier so you knew something was really wrong.) Finally he said "I have cancer.."the next several minutes followed by tears and saying please don't leave me and getting the facts straight was tough. He got off the phone and I called my mom in tears telling her what I found out. Still in shock and listening to Rusty again and all the things running through his mind made it harder. ( Babe I'm supposed to take care of you..it's my job...no one Else's..I need to stick around..please come here as soon as possible.. You need to help me get through this.. I need you.) That night I text Travis Catt and asked if he could give me a blessing. He left what he was doing to take me to an appartment that he always felt the spirit there. I felt weird because here I am crying and these girls have no idea why but were glad to give up there living room so Travis could give me a blessing. He felt strongly that this would make Rusty and I stronger and that we would get through this. We all ended up getting blessings; his mom, him, and I and all the blessings seemed to convey that it was going to be okay and even if he was going to have a had time we all knew he would live. For the next few days telling people got a little easier and researching it made me feel better and also knowing Chris Weiss had gone through it and was fine. I drove up to Rio Rancho that Friday and went to the specialist on Monday (24th) with him. The doc had good news. He really felt that it was just going to be a surgical fix and he would not have to go through chemo or radiation. He got test done, his blood drawn for the first time (he asked for a butterfly needle and the lady was like "your not a toddler" and made him be a big boy), a chest x-ray, and a CT scan to make sure it hadn't spread.

February 4th at 1:30 he had his left testicle removed and hopefully this will be the end of it but we won't know for a few weeks until he get his blood drawn again. Rusty's outlook has changed and now has more compassion for people that have to go through this. We thank everyone who put his name in the temples across the country, for every one's prayers, and concerns!

Tumor was 7 1/2 cm