Throughout each of our lives, there are bumps in the road that we have to deal with. In some cases, they are small bumps, but in others, like for Brandon and Jordan McNaughton, they can be big and unexpected. The McNaughton’s was a medical diagnosis that Brandon received.
“Brandon was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic appendiceal adenocarcinoma or more simply put, appendix cancer, at the end of September of 2024,” Jordan said. “This is an extremely rare type of cancer, especially for a 28 year old male.”
Since the diagnosis, it has been a long and difficult journey. They took a number of trips to Dallas to meet with doctors and tried to get a grasp on the situation.
“On November 18th, we were admitted to Baylor Scott White Hospital and found out his cancer was spreading through his belly fast,” Jordan recalled. “Chemo started a few weeks later. After an exploratory surgery in January telling us we could do the HiPec due to his belly being too full of tumors, we decided to try to come back to Oklahoma if doing chemo was our only option.”
Brandon has been at Mercy Hospital in Oklahoma City since January. During this time, Jordan was pregnant. While they were not sure that Brandon was going to be able to be there for the birth, Jordan said that the team that was with them made it happen.
“We struggled really hard with the fact that he wouldn’t be able to be with me when I had Kennedy,” Jordan said. “Our palliative care team at Mercy worked so hard to work it out to where he was able to be in the delivery room and the postpartum room with me the entire time I was there. It was a true blessing.”
Jordan is a teacher at Chisholm Middle School, teaching Language Arts to eighth graders. Along with Kennedy, who was born on February 24th, they also have a two year old daughter Avery.
“We’re currently working on getting his strength up and his pain managed so he can come home and do outpatient chemo,” Jordan said. “This process has been long and stressful. We have so many unknowns and unanswered questions due to the rarity of this cancer. There are hardly any case studies on it and the chemo they use to treat it, technically isn’t made to battle this type of cancer. While it’s been difficult, we also realize how blessed we are. We have had so many people help us in so many ways and pray for us daily. Brandon said at the beginning of this journey ‘God’s got this’, and He does. We are trusting in His plan for us, whatever it may be.”
