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He said, "Go home and live out your life. You have two to six months left."
When we got a phone call in california and was told that news,I fell into tears.
Matt refused to let his illness get him down. He didn't become bitter and angry at the cruel blow that fate dealt him. He chose not to. "Rather, I choose to stay positive" Matt said. It was about October 12th when he said that the journey to california for treatment was none too soon for him. "I was sinking," he said. "Every day I felt a little worse."
In three short months, Matt's life had been topsy-turvy. He returned to begin his junior year at college seemingly healthy, full of energy and ambition. He was especially looking forward to baseball season because he was the starting shortstop on the central College varsity baseball team. "I was feeling fine," he remembered. "In fact I was working out to get ready for baseball." However, in late September, a pain developed in his neck and shoulder. Matt didn't pay too much attention to it thinking it was a pulled muscle. "But the pain persisted for a couple of weeks," he said. "And then I began feeling feverish."
Typical of young people and even some older,Matt resisted going to the doctor. But,finally,he reluctantly gave into the nagging symptoms and went to see a doctor.
The first thing he was tested for was monomucleosis,a common affliction of college students, many of whom do not eat or sleep properly. The mono test was negative and Matt was sent home.
"But I continued to feel feverish," he said. "In fact,I was feeling worse and worse."
He returned to the clinic where he was given a chest X-ray which showed that the right side of his liver was twice the size of the left side.
The next day Matt underwent a CAT scan which produced the first solid evidence of the cancer.
The doctors didn't know how Matt's cancer started. Neither did they know where though they suspect it started somewhere else in his body and then spread to his liver. However, it is probable that the huge tumor in his liver had been developing for quite some time unknown and unfelt by matt.
The doctors in Iowa City told Matt that, because of the size of the tumor,surgery to remove it was not an option. They said he must immediatly undergo treatment in the form of a particularly aggressive form of chemotherapy called "chemoembolization."
Two weeks later, only three weeks after he first went into the clinic complaining of feeling feverish, Matt and his parents were told by Iowa City doctors that the chemotherapy hadn't done any good and that the cancer appeared to be terminal.
It was then that the young man was advised to go back home, and put his affairs in order because he had only a few months to live.
"I was shocked. "This was life and death," said Matt.
Matt and Sheri
had been dating steadily since their days as
high school sweethearts. Sheri has already
graduated college and is teaching
kindergarden with a college degree in
education. Matt had planned to be a
teacher.
When Sheri heard about Matt's
illness, she took a leave of absence from her
teaching position to be by his
side.
Matt's family and Sheri could not accept that there was no hope. They began searching for alternatives. The search led the to the John Wayne Cancer Institute,which specializes in melanoma cancer. Matt and his parents and sister embarked on Nov. 10th to fly to california from the Minneapolis, Minn airport.
'I was sinking," he said."Every day, I felt a little worse." The doctors at the John Wayne Cancer Institute didn't waste any time once Matt arrived. After reviewing his previous test results and starting additional tests of their own, they began the "bio-chemotherapy" treatments.
According to the doctors,Bio-chemotherapy had been successful with 65% of the patients who have received it. Some of those patients had cancer as severe as Matt's.
Still hearing that the success rate of the new chemotherapy treatment to date has been 65% was like a breath of fresh air to Matt and his family. "This was the first positive news we heard," says Matt's mother.
Matt returned home for the holidays after undergoing two of the bio-chemotherapy reatments. The treatment cycle consisted of five straight days during which the chemotherapy was given followed by two weeks of rest.
The Bio-chemotherapy
treatments were administered two ways...
directly into Matt's blood stream through a
large artery near his heart and
injections.
According to his doctors Matt
was responding well at that time.
Matt and his parents then returned to the John Wayne Cancer Institute January 5th, where he then underwent a series of tests to ascertain the results of the first two cycles of bio-chemotherapy.
It was then they had said he only had weeks to live,nothing seemed to be working. He was sent back to his home in Iowa to live out the rest of his life in bed. :-(
Matthew John, 21, of Elkader
Iowa,died Wednesday, January 20th,1999, at
home after a brief battle with liver
cancer.
Still surviving are his
parents, a sister, and a very special
friend (girlfriend), his grandparents,
Donald,Gordetta,and Galen. Also his
great-grandmother.
He meant a lot to me
and hearing about all this weakend my heart!
I wasn't able to be near him as he spent his
last few days on Earth. He died only
days before my birthday. We will always love
you Matt! God Bless!
