Jordy Ponce

I spoke to my future supervisor from my hospital room and I was sort of frantic.

I was like, I know this is hard to believe, but like, I just got diagnosed with cancer.

I'm at the hospital.

I don't know what to do about this job.

I don't know what to tell you.

I'm really scared.

And she was fantastic.

Deanne, she said, first of all, I'm gonna pray for you.

Secondly, we're going to hold this job.

You just focus on your health.

I was super relieved to have that sort of taken care of for the time being, but also pretty nervous because I didn't know what the future would hold and if I would ever be able to take that job.

Eventually, I did end up entering Moffitt, not as a staff member, but as a patient, which was pretty devastating.

And in the weeks that followed, we met with a bunch of fantastic, top-notch, top-in-their-field specialists, but they were sharing really scary things about this cancer.

We were hearing terms like rare, neuroendocrine carcinoma, stage four, incurable,

And I bullied the doctors into this one, but my personal favorite was an average lifespan of about two years from date of diagnosis.

That's the day I learned what it's like to go catatonic.

My family actually had to kind of prop me up to leave the cancer center that day because I was in so much shock and my head was spinning.

I quickly started chemo, my hair fell out, I lost more weight.

My friends did that amazing thing they do where they all shaved their heads in solidarity, but it was actually annoying because they all looked awesome in their buzz cuts, and I have the skull apparently of a Pachyosaurus dinosaur that's sort of bulbous and misshapen, so it didn't have the intended effect exactly.

I spent my days getting chemo,