After about 18 months, he started to panic.
“I was really starting to get desperate for a solution,” he said. “I didn’t want to face the fact that my mom was probably going to die.”
The cancer had spread to Connie’s lymph nodes. She started to lose her voice. And, eventually, the family brought her home to make her as comfortable as possible.
“Everything kind of flipped upside down at that point,” he said.
Months away from his high school graduation, knowing he would soon be moving to Seattle, the reality of the situation was tough to take. “It was very, very difficult,” he said.
“It was a critical point in my life, because I was leaving Arizona, my home base. I knew I was very fortunate to have this opportunity, but there was a part of me that was like, ‘I’m leaving my family behind.’”
As he processed his grief, he knew the day would come when he would no longer have the “comfort and support” his father, his older brothers, Tyler and Scott, and his younger sister, Hannah.
“I think that was my biggest challenge, suffering alone up here,” he said. During his freshman year, he missed his mother.
“Losing that kind of voice and influence was extremely difficult,” he said. “She knew me better than I knew myself.”