Looking back, Colton went through many challenges with his health. As a toddler and in his early school years, he suffered from constant ear/nose/throat issues that came with extremely high fever. I was forever taking him to the Doctor’s office, then specialists, and quite often the Emergency room. These constant infections led to a lack of the ability to concentrate at school and I spent countless hours with workbooks at home, teaching him the basics one-on-one which I found he could grasp quite easily. A group of teachers, speech and language pathologists, and learning assistants told me that he would likely always need extra help in school due to his learning disability. I told them, quite angrily, that he didn’t have a learning disability, he had health issues. So, we agreed to disagree. By middle school, Colton made the work habits Honor Roll, and by high school he was on the Academic Honor Roll. Then his health started to take a turn for the worse.
During his Grad year he suffered from a condition called Pilonidal Sinus. It caused several infected cysts that required two surgeries, hospital time and in-home care.
Then, leading up to and including his 19th birthday, he suffered an extreme sinus infection that moved in behind his eye, literally moving his eye over with the swelling. The infection spread through him so bad that he suffered extreme headaches that took us to the Emergency room on several occasions where they simply treated him for migraines. Thankfully our family Doctor happened to be there one night, saw him and said “that’s no migraine, he needs surgery immediately!” They went in at the corner of his eye as well as his nose to drain the infection which could have killed him if it had burst in his head. A close call.
By 2015, he told me about a spot that the dental hygienist saw at the back of his tongue during a routine cleaning. Colton never missed a dental appointment, and had never had a single cavity. He then tried to open up and show me this spot but I couldn’t really see much. He said it didn’t hurt but that the dentist would keep an eye on it. Eventually they scraped it and sent it away to be tested and it came back fine, and we didn’t worry about it. Over time, several months to a year, he mentioned that it was starting to be painful and hurt when he ate, like a canker sore. By this time, Randy and I had been transferred to Edmonton, 8 hours away. He had to make all of his own Dr. appointments and follow through by himself. He was living on his own, with his girlfriend and they were living life. All grown up.
Thanksgiving weekend in Edmonton. Randy had taken a week to go back to Prince George to go hunting with his eldest son and his father. Colton and his girlfriend decided to take a road trip and visit me. We had such a great time that weekend, and now it’s one of my fondest memories. October in Edmonton is cold. We wore our winter coats to take Louie our Frenchton puppy for walks to a nearby park. I took a video on my phone of Colton and his girl playing on the merry go round like a couple of little kids, then going down the slide taking the puppy with them. We just enjoyed our time immensely, going to the West Edmonton Mall where we played mini golf, video games, saw a movie, all the fun stuff. We took the time to visit the Science center. I cooked a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving, God I loved to cook for that boy and watch him eat! I will cherish that visit always as it was the last one before he got his test results back before Christmas. The spot on the back of his tongue was Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Cancer. We weren’t sure what to expect but it wasn’t that.