Mark Godbold

On July 7, 2020, Mark was awoken while on shift with severe abdominal pain and vomiting.   He went to the ER and was hospitalized for 3 days diagnosed with an intestinal infection and released once he was able to eat again.  He was home for only 2 days when he felt very poorly and wasn't able to get out of bed for a day.  We went back to the ER the evening of July 11 and he was diagnosed with a small bowel obstruction resulting from what appeared to be a tumor.  On July 13, he went to surgery and the tumor was removed - the surgeon was certain it was cancer.  He had to have almost a foot each of small and large intestine removed to get to healthy enough tissue to sew back together.  Thank God he didn't require a colostomy!  Several days later we got the official pathology report that it was Stage 3C colon cancer and 9 of the 16 lymph nodes removed were positive for cancer.   The margins were clear so they are confident the entire tumor was removed.  The cancer has not metastasized to liver or lungs which are the most likely places for it to spread.  He will require 6 months of chemotherapy to reduce the chance of recurrence from random cells or lymph nodes in there that may still have cancer.   Thank you for visiting our site where we will keep everyone updated at once.  We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement!