Trackside-Brandy
10-18-2016, 04:26 PM
Some of you may have already heard this story spreading via social media, though I feel it is also important to post here.
Most of you know Chad Reynolds and if the name does not sound familiar, then Bangshift should. I normally do not post
much in the way of these stories, but 2016 has been turning into a crappy year for those with health concerns. I do not
want this to be the case with this family. I have included Chad's social media post below with hope that people will start
praying and if they are able to donate, please do so. -Brandy
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2016/10/chad20and20daphne_zpsjcnidtui-1.jpg
"Your wife has cancer… Not the four words you really want to hear. Not nearly as cool as You Won The Lottery… or You Set The
Record.. or You Tree’d His Ass!… or well…. you get the point.
And I thought the 6 weeks leading up to this sucked. I was wrong. I just didn’t realize at the time what the “it sucks” scale really
was. Here is how all this started, and how it led to yesterday’s diagnosis of Stage 4 small cell cancer.
It’s the day before the NMCA race in Norwalk and I’ve just gotten to the hotel and am about to grab food before getting ready for
our live broadcast to start the next day, when my wife Daphne sends me a text message with a picture of some bloody thing and
then calls to tell me that she’s just coughed this thing up! She was fine, got a tickle in her throat and started coughing and here
comes this bloody chunk. A friend who is a nurse checks her out and says she seems okay but that she needs to watch and
make sure she isn’t coughing up anything else. The next morning she wakes up short of breath and goes to the urgent care.
While there they determine that she has pneumonia, a partially collapsed lung, and that she needs to go to the ER so they
can examine her further and give her a CT scan.
I’m about to go live at Norwalk’s Shakedown at the Summit, with the minion of all minions Neal Sabo, when my wife Daphne
sends me a text telling me all this and I spend the next hour trying to figure out how to get back home in a hurry. Meanwhile I’m
training Neal on how to do a live broadcast all by himself and then hit the road and head for home. Delayed flights, airport
changes, and more require all my patience, but I finally get on a flight to LAX that has me landing at midnight.
They send her home after putting her on antibiotics and tell us to get in and see our primary care physician as soon as possible.
This starts weeks of referrals, doctor visits, CT scans, Ultrasounds, and headaches as we explain her medical history 14 times
and the fact that this woman was healthy as a horse until just days before. Most of this falls on deaf ears until we get to our
second pulmonologist who is blown away by some of our previous treatment and vows to eradicate her pneumonia so we can
see if there is anything left to fight after that, noting that when we get rid of all the pneumonia we’ll be doing more scans to make
sure there is no cancer present. He says that the one area they can see that looks suspicious is very small and that if there is
cancer present there it should be treatable by simply removing a segment of the lung and then we’d be cancer free.
A couple weeks of breathing hell, trying to get weaned off Prednisone, and getting pneumonia out of her system has us visiting
an Eastern Medicine OMD who works with Daphne using supplements, herbs, acupuncture, cupping, tinctures and more. The
result? An amazing transformation in how her stomach, which has always bothered her, and here breathing are doing. She puts
on weight, in fact enough to hit 107 lbs. which is the heaviest she’s been since being pregnant with Cole in 2001. We were
kicking ass and taking names, and feeling pretty good when the doctor changes some meds and has us do another CT scan.
The results are not what we wanted. We’re going to have to do a biopsy. Crap.
We go the biopsy on Monday October 10th. The procedure itself went smoothly, but while Daphne was coming out of anesthesia
our doctor came to see me and said it was not what he was hoping for. It turns out he couldn’t even get to the mass we knew
about, because a second tumor was pushing on Daphne’s bronchial passage below her trachea and causing an almost complete
blockage going to her lung. The fact that she was breathing as well as she was didn’t make sense, and he was scared that the
tumor would block the airway and cause that lung to collapse. Preliminary pathology results said that this newly found tumor
was in fact cancerous. WTF!
Knowing Daphne would freak out; the doctor asked if I wanted him to keep it from her until we had an appointment with him
later in the week. My answer was no, because waiting all week to find out would kill her. So he told her. And she was devastated
when I finally got to see her in the Post Op recovery room. But she focused, and got stronger, and faced the fact that we had a
fight on our hands and refused to give up. The next day she was surprisingly good. The day after that I went for VO at MavTV
and then to a meeting downtown LA. She was having a hard time at home breathing all that day and our daughter Peyton was
trying to help her with major coughing fits. When I got home that evening I realized this wasn’t going to get real good, but it
might get real bad. So I packed her up and took her to the ER. She was admitted to the hospital a few hours later, and we spent
two days at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center getting great care from a really nice nursing staff. Unfortunately, the results
from pathology, and a CT scan that had been done during our time in the ER, shows that this tumor is swelling and causing
more trouble and they are afraid her airway will close if they don’t get her somewhere that can do surgery and provide more
specialized care.
That care would come upon our arrival at Keck Hospital at USC, where we were admitted into the Thoracic ICU wing and would
receive insanely caring treatment from their nursing and respiratory tech staff members. I’m talking world class care here.
Unfortunately it’s also the place that gave us our first shocking, and bad, news. According to preliminary results, we were facing
Stage 3 cancer, but we didn’t know what kind. After spending the weekend getting unbelievably effective breathing treatments,
and lots of encouragement and care from the nurses, we got to today. Monday the 17th. The day would include fighting for test
results from the Pomona Valley Hospital staff, getting an MRI, having our PET scan pushed to Tuesday, and ultimately receiving
our diagnosis and stage of cancer.
This was perhaps the ****tiest conversation I’ve ever had. The doctor who gave us the news was professional, and relatively
compassionate, but if he had unicorns coming out of his butt it wouldn’t have made him someone we wanted to hear from. The
diagnosis was not what we wanted. But it was not all together unexpected.
We knew we were going to have a fight on our hands. And we knew that it wouldn’t be easy. I told Daphne that the PET scan,
MRI, etc. were all for the doctors, not for us. That regardless of the results, we didn’t care about them. Why? Because they only
tell how much, and where, your cancer is. You already know you have it. And regardless of how much there is, they are going to
do treatments that you don’t like. That’s just a given. So facing the fact that there is a fight, and you are in it, and that is what you
need to focus on, is key. But not easy.
We’ve got Stage 4 Small Cell Cancer. It’s in Daphne’s lung, on her bronchia and trachea, and the PET scan will likely show it is
somewhere else as well. And the MRI shows a small lesion or tumor in her brain, which is not uncommon with small cell cancer,
and means that she’ll have a bit of radiation to kick it’s ass and keep her brain good. It’s not the fight we were hoping for, but it’s
the fight we’ve got to fight.
I’ve always had a thing about fights. A rule if you will. You see, for the average street fight, it doesn’t matter how big you are, or
how hard you can punch. What matters is your commitment level. The guy who is willing to die, and therefore willing to kill, is
the guy that will most often win a really gnarly fight. We’re that guy.
So we are going to fight. We’re starting chemo this week. And while doing all of this we will also be using several other less
tradition treatments so that we can make sure we’re leaving no stone unturned. We’ll probably be doing a couple different
radiation treatments as well. And then three weeks from now we’ll do another three days of chemo, and we’re going to repeat
that several times. And in three weeks my wife’s pretty hair is going to be gone. And I don’t care. It’s not why I love her.
I love her because she is one of the sweetest most caring people I’ve ever known. I love her because she puts up with me. I
love her because she is smart and sexy and she turns me on. I love her because she is a great mother. And I love her because
she is a scrapper, a fighter, and in this case she’s not afraid to kill.
But she might die trying. We know that. But I made a promise to her. I promised that we would fight in every way we could, but
not at the expense of living. That I would support her regardless of what happens, and that I will take care of her babies if the
worst happens. But most importantly, I promised her that I would not let her die stuck in a hospital hooked to a bunch of
machines. So we’re going to be making some plans in the coming days. She’s already decided that racing her car is one thing
we are NOT missing out on. And it is likely that we’ll be doing some road trips. Hell, this could end up being the #teamwickchick (https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/teamwickchick?source=feed_text&story_id=1307282422615351)
world tour. And we’re getting matching tattoos! Us, both of our kids, and whoever else wants to be a part of it. We’re taking
charge. We’re going to kick ass and take names. We’re going to live, because otherwise there isn’t anything worth fighting for.
And we owe all of you that have shared, donated, and commented on this GoFundMe page. Michael Jones, aka MJ, you are a
saint and a cheerleader and we love you for it. We never expected MJ to do this. We never asked. But every hour tears stream
down our faces as we look at the names of friends, colleagues, family, and unknowns who have given. There are some of you
that have given amounts that Daphne and I know are real money for you. Money that will be missed. It’s humbling, inspiring,
and appreciated more than I can tell you. If this money allows us to treat the love of my life, Daphne Reynolds, while making
sure she’s living the life she needs, and keeping house and home whole, so we can keep our family happy, then it’s more
valuable than its sum total. Daphne, Peyton, Cole, and I will never be able to truly express our thanks for all of your charity.
Words can’t do that, but our actions will."
-Chad
If you would like to help the Reynold's family while they go through this rough time, please visit the
gofundme page that was set up for them:
https://www.gofundme.com/daphne-reynolds-kick-c-fund-2ug5464 (https://www.gofundme.com/daphne-reynolds-kick-c-fund-2ug5464)
Most of you know Chad Reynolds and if the name does not sound familiar, then Bangshift should. I normally do not post
much in the way of these stories, but 2016 has been turning into a crappy year for those with health concerns. I do not
want this to be the case with this family. I have included Chad's social media post below with hope that people will start
praying and if they are able to donate, please do so. -Brandy
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/pt/2016/10/chad20and20daphne_zpsjcnidtui-1.jpg
"Your wife has cancer… Not the four words you really want to hear. Not nearly as cool as You Won The Lottery… or You Set The
Record.. or You Tree’d His Ass!… or well…. you get the point.
And I thought the 6 weeks leading up to this sucked. I was wrong. I just didn’t realize at the time what the “it sucks” scale really
was. Here is how all this started, and how it led to yesterday’s diagnosis of Stage 4 small cell cancer.
It’s the day before the NMCA race in Norwalk and I’ve just gotten to the hotel and am about to grab food before getting ready for
our live broadcast to start the next day, when my wife Daphne sends me a text message with a picture of some bloody thing and
then calls to tell me that she’s just coughed this thing up! She was fine, got a tickle in her throat and started coughing and here
comes this bloody chunk. A friend who is a nurse checks her out and says she seems okay but that she needs to watch and
make sure she isn’t coughing up anything else. The next morning she wakes up short of breath and goes to the urgent care.
While there they determine that she has pneumonia, a partially collapsed lung, and that she needs to go to the ER so they
can examine her further and give her a CT scan.
I’m about to go live at Norwalk’s Shakedown at the Summit, with the minion of all minions Neal Sabo, when my wife Daphne
sends me a text telling me all this and I spend the next hour trying to figure out how to get back home in a hurry. Meanwhile I’m
training Neal on how to do a live broadcast all by himself and then hit the road and head for home. Delayed flights, airport
changes, and more require all my patience, but I finally get on a flight to LAX that has me landing at midnight.
They send her home after putting her on antibiotics and tell us to get in and see our primary care physician as soon as possible.
This starts weeks of referrals, doctor visits, CT scans, Ultrasounds, and headaches as we explain her medical history 14 times
and the fact that this woman was healthy as a horse until just days before. Most of this falls on deaf ears until we get to our
second pulmonologist who is blown away by some of our previous treatment and vows to eradicate her pneumonia so we can
see if there is anything left to fight after that, noting that when we get rid of all the pneumonia we’ll be doing more scans to make
sure there is no cancer present. He says that the one area they can see that looks suspicious is very small and that if there is
cancer present there it should be treatable by simply removing a segment of the lung and then we’d be cancer free.
A couple weeks of breathing hell, trying to get weaned off Prednisone, and getting pneumonia out of her system has us visiting
an Eastern Medicine OMD who works with Daphne using supplements, herbs, acupuncture, cupping, tinctures and more. The
result? An amazing transformation in how her stomach, which has always bothered her, and here breathing are doing. She puts
on weight, in fact enough to hit 107 lbs. which is the heaviest she’s been since being pregnant with Cole in 2001. We were
kicking ass and taking names, and feeling pretty good when the doctor changes some meds and has us do another CT scan.
The results are not what we wanted. We’re going to have to do a biopsy. Crap.
We go the biopsy on Monday October 10th. The procedure itself went smoothly, but while Daphne was coming out of anesthesia
our doctor came to see me and said it was not what he was hoping for. It turns out he couldn’t even get to the mass we knew
about, because a second tumor was pushing on Daphne’s bronchial passage below her trachea and causing an almost complete
blockage going to her lung. The fact that she was breathing as well as she was didn’t make sense, and he was scared that the
tumor would block the airway and cause that lung to collapse. Preliminary pathology results said that this newly found tumor
was in fact cancerous. WTF!
Knowing Daphne would freak out; the doctor asked if I wanted him to keep it from her until we had an appointment with him
later in the week. My answer was no, because waiting all week to find out would kill her. So he told her. And she was devastated
when I finally got to see her in the Post Op recovery room. But she focused, and got stronger, and faced the fact that we had a
fight on our hands and refused to give up. The next day she was surprisingly good. The day after that I went for VO at MavTV
and then to a meeting downtown LA. She was having a hard time at home breathing all that day and our daughter Peyton was
trying to help her with major coughing fits. When I got home that evening I realized this wasn’t going to get real good, but it
might get real bad. So I packed her up and took her to the ER. She was admitted to the hospital a few hours later, and we spent
two days at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center getting great care from a really nice nursing staff. Unfortunately, the results
from pathology, and a CT scan that had been done during our time in the ER, shows that this tumor is swelling and causing
more trouble and they are afraid her airway will close if they don’t get her somewhere that can do surgery and provide more
specialized care.
That care would come upon our arrival at Keck Hospital at USC, where we were admitted into the Thoracic ICU wing and would
receive insanely caring treatment from their nursing and respiratory tech staff members. I’m talking world class care here.
Unfortunately it’s also the place that gave us our first shocking, and bad, news. According to preliminary results, we were facing
Stage 3 cancer, but we didn’t know what kind. After spending the weekend getting unbelievably effective breathing treatments,
and lots of encouragement and care from the nurses, we got to today. Monday the 17th. The day would include fighting for test
results from the Pomona Valley Hospital staff, getting an MRI, having our PET scan pushed to Tuesday, and ultimately receiving
our diagnosis and stage of cancer.
This was perhaps the ****tiest conversation I’ve ever had. The doctor who gave us the news was professional, and relatively
compassionate, but if he had unicorns coming out of his butt it wouldn’t have made him someone we wanted to hear from. The
diagnosis was not what we wanted. But it was not all together unexpected.
We knew we were going to have a fight on our hands. And we knew that it wouldn’t be easy. I told Daphne that the PET scan,
MRI, etc. were all for the doctors, not for us. That regardless of the results, we didn’t care about them. Why? Because they only
tell how much, and where, your cancer is. You already know you have it. And regardless of how much there is, they are going to
do treatments that you don’t like. That’s just a given. So facing the fact that there is a fight, and you are in it, and that is what you
need to focus on, is key. But not easy.
We’ve got Stage 4 Small Cell Cancer. It’s in Daphne’s lung, on her bronchia and trachea, and the PET scan will likely show it is
somewhere else as well. And the MRI shows a small lesion or tumor in her brain, which is not uncommon with small cell cancer,
and means that she’ll have a bit of radiation to kick it’s ass and keep her brain good. It’s not the fight we were hoping for, but it’s
the fight we’ve got to fight.
I’ve always had a thing about fights. A rule if you will. You see, for the average street fight, it doesn’t matter how big you are, or
how hard you can punch. What matters is your commitment level. The guy who is willing to die, and therefore willing to kill, is
the guy that will most often win a really gnarly fight. We’re that guy.
So we are going to fight. We’re starting chemo this week. And while doing all of this we will also be using several other less
tradition treatments so that we can make sure we’re leaving no stone unturned. We’ll probably be doing a couple different
radiation treatments as well. And then three weeks from now we’ll do another three days of chemo, and we’re going to repeat
that several times. And in three weeks my wife’s pretty hair is going to be gone. And I don’t care. It’s not why I love her.
I love her because she is one of the sweetest most caring people I’ve ever known. I love her because she puts up with me. I
love her because she is smart and sexy and she turns me on. I love her because she is a great mother. And I love her because
she is a scrapper, a fighter, and in this case she’s not afraid to kill.
But she might die trying. We know that. But I made a promise to her. I promised that we would fight in every way we could, but
not at the expense of living. That I would support her regardless of what happens, and that I will take care of her babies if the
worst happens. But most importantly, I promised her that I would not let her die stuck in a hospital hooked to a bunch of
machines. So we’re going to be making some plans in the coming days. She’s already decided that racing her car is one thing
we are NOT missing out on. And it is likely that we’ll be doing some road trips. Hell, this could end up being the #teamwickchick (https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/teamwickchick?source=feed_text&story_id=1307282422615351)
world tour. And we’re getting matching tattoos! Us, both of our kids, and whoever else wants to be a part of it. We’re taking
charge. We’re going to kick ass and take names. We’re going to live, because otherwise there isn’t anything worth fighting for.
And we owe all of you that have shared, donated, and commented on this GoFundMe page. Michael Jones, aka MJ, you are a
saint and a cheerleader and we love you for it. We never expected MJ to do this. We never asked. But every hour tears stream
down our faces as we look at the names of friends, colleagues, family, and unknowns who have given. There are some of you
that have given amounts that Daphne and I know are real money for you. Money that will be missed. It’s humbling, inspiring,
and appreciated more than I can tell you. If this money allows us to treat the love of my life, Daphne Reynolds, while making
sure she’s living the life she needs, and keeping house and home whole, so we can keep our family happy, then it’s more
valuable than its sum total. Daphne, Peyton, Cole, and I will never be able to truly express our thanks for all of your charity.
Words can’t do that, but our actions will."
-Chad
If you would like to help the Reynold's family while they go through this rough time, please visit the
gofundme page that was set up for them:
https://www.gofundme.com/daphne-reynolds-kick-c-fund-2ug5464 (https://www.gofundme.com/daphne-reynolds-kick-c-fund-2ug5464)