Shane C., CO

My whole life growing up, I was playing sports — it was all I thought about. I ended up going to college on a cross country scholarship. I ran for four years at Lincoln Memorial University, setting records and serving as team captain.

Upon graduation, I went into coaching cross country and track and started running marathons. In 2014, I was the first American male finisher at the Dallas Marathon.

In 2017, I married the love of my life, and less than six months later I started coughing uncontrollably whenever I ran. I went to see a doctor who brushed it off as allergies and told me to take an allergy medication. A month later, I came back with a dry cough that was diagnosed as postnasal drip due to allergies. I was given a new allergy medicine and an inhaler and sent on my way.

A few months later, I came back in as I was finding it hard to breathe lying on my back. After begging for an X-ray to rule out pneumonia, I got a call telling me I needed to come back to the clinic immediately. The doctor who was so quick to brush off my concerns in the past was now very serious and told me that based on what she could see from the X-ray, both lungs were littered with cancer.

I laughed. I had been active my entire life and never smoked one cigarette.

After further testing and a round of chemo, I was diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer with an ALK-positive mutation in August 2018 at 27 years old. After seeing a few doctors at different hospitals, we settled on a doctor locally. I was prescribed a medication and took three pills twice a day.

After three months on the medication, I got a CT scan and the doctor informed me the cancer cells were 90% gone. I felt no side effects from the drug and had been living my life as normal — even running a marathon during that time. Receiving this news, I was relieved and comforted. My family — especially my wife and father, who had been incredibly supportive throughout all of this — were even more relieved.

For six years, we received a CT scan every six months with no changes evident. At this time, we inquired about taking a break from the medication in order to start a family, and with our doctor’s blessing, we did so.

In March 2024, we had our beautiful Julia and were over the moon with life. We were showing no signs of cancer growth, had a beautiful daughter and were running two successful businesses.

Yet, in November of that same year, that joy began to waver. I went in for my six-month scan and they weren’t able to view my right lung because of fluid accumulation. In the time since my initial diagnosis, we had moved across the country, and I was scheduling my six-month appointments based on family events and holidays. The doctor told me the left lung looked good, but based on the fluid, I should find a doctor where I live now — as he said I’d probably be having a few more appointments coming up.

As we waited to see a new doctor, I started to feel worse and worse. I began getting my lungs drained every other week, and then every week. Once I finally got to see a doctor, I truly felt I was past the point of return. I was ordered more imaging.

The new imaging showed new tumors in the right lung, as well as some metastasis in the left lung, pelvis, spine — and most horrifyingly — my brain. I had been feeling off for some time, and this explained it.

As we approached my daughter’s first birthday, I was feeling worse every day. With my family coming into town, I so desperately just wanted to enjoy a celebration. I couldn’t. I had to take a nap in the middle of her birthday party because my head hurt so badly.

I started a trial drug that week, but my brain had been rapidly getting worse since the scans. The day after the party, my father went with me to the hospital to get a catheter installed in my right lung so I could drain it myself instead of going to the hospital once a week. Who would’ve guessed a semi-permanent catheter installed in your body would be a great relief?

When I got another scan, the lesions in my brain were getting better, but the rest of my body was getting worse. Unable to do chemo on the trial drug, they moved me to the previous-generation drug, Lorlatinib.

I’m doing chemo and handling it pretty well now, although it’s only been a few months. The lesions in my brain are almost totally gone. And while the tumors in my lungs are not getting better, they don’t seem to be getting worse either.

I feel some guilt for bringing a child into the world knowing my cancer could come back. But I also feel immense gratitude for every moment I get to spend with her and my family.

back but I do not regret it as she is the greatest thing I have ever experienced. Cancer sucks but I was expected to live less than a year on my initial diagnosis and made it 7 years with almost no symptoms. I now have to drain my lung regularly and give myself blood thinner injections twice a day but I’m working and get to spend time with my daughter watching her grow. I hate the cancer but I’m still able to live a life that I love and keep hope that I will continue to be able to do so just a little longer