Welcome to the Justice League Cancertastic Adventure!
I know that this is really weird. Like, me, sarcastic cracking jokes Justin Justice. Funny ol Big Man! Always trying to make light of something, pull a prank, be the Leo walking around saying Look at me! and then now I have cancer? That isn't funny Justin. People want to know how you are feeling but that's a tough one to ask about. Well, here you go: I'll update it when I can you don't have to ask (unless you want to which I'm totally ok with), let me entertain like I like to do. Let me be me, you be you and let's all get through this thing called life baybay!
Well, what happend?
June 12th, 2026
At the beginning of the year, I started a new full-time job as the manager of the Brookside Barkery and with that leap to running the store also came the new store startup of being the one that unloads the deliveries, stocking shelves, helps get it going with some manual labor. Desk job to moving a ton of pet food; moving. I started to lose weight from moving around more, not a lot but it was cool to see things start to slide back down the scale; I also started to feel it in the back. Then I really started to feel it in the back and went to a Chiropractor for help. It did help… kinda but the pain was still there, and it just wouldn’t go away, but neither did the bags of food and so I had to make another tough choice to leave the Barkery family (because they are, they are not former coworkers, they are a place where a lot of incredibly awesome friends work) and leave my new manager position before the middle of the year. I get the first job I apply for, because I don’t really want to leave so if I go it has to be something I want to do. I know I can’t do sales even though I can talk to people and I so when I found the job with Johnson County Mental Health, working the front desk and just focusing on being social, connecting with clients, being in a great field I knew that was the job. I could write another book about how well they have treated me since this happened and in such a short amount of time. However, the back pain continued, and I needed to get it fixed unless I start as the old man shuffling around. I ended up throwing out my back, of course, and ended up at the Urgent Care and left with pills. A week later, no lower back pain but my neck and shoulders were just picking up the pain. Monday, June 8th, it was bad. Tuesday worse. I’m literally coming home on lunch to lay on a heating pad, I’m coming home from work to lay on a heating pad, I’m taking Aleve’s, I’m putting Tiger Balm and muscle sprays and I just can’t get my shoulders to release my neck and it all feels like nothing is working. Thursday I get told that I just need to go the ER. I’m in the ER and I think maybe a pinched nerve, at the MAX we are talking about a fracture in the neck from a bad adjustment? That was the worst that could happen so let’s get the CT scan and see what we find out. Dr wanted some blood, then wanted to scan my torso? Then, he came in my room and he told me that my hemoglobin level was at a 7 and should be at a 14 and he was pretty sure I was anemic. Then he came back in and said he was pretty sure that he saw on the CT scan that I was showing Cancer spots on my spine and it appears it was not the shoulders hurting the neck it was actually that I had spots in my cranium that were shooting down my spine and it was swelling and that is why I had so much pain there, cancer made it to my brain. What’s up doc? Did you just come in with “Cancer spots”? They called an ambulance, I went to Overland Park Regional that night and over the weekend of June 12th through Sunday the 14th I got my world absolutely exploded. I got an MRI on Friday morning, more confirmation that it was cancer and pretty sure it originated in the Colon. So, prep for a colonoscopy with a biopsy on Saturday, blood tests, 2 transfusions, Iron injection, IV just being pumped with Fentanyl and more Dr’s and nurses than I’ve ever seen, more results and nothing good. I had Dr. Ichbal, Colonologist, sits next to me and for a moment the blur of the weekend, the constant thought that this wasn’t really happening to me, all of it just like stopped and he is reading it out loud, right there, like a judge delivering the verdict and I just had to hear it: * Stage 4 Colon Cancer and that (sorry for the language) motherfucking “4” coming out of his mouth, that was tough to take. * Started in my Colon and has metastasized/spread to my liver, it’s pretty shot, I have an 8×7 spot that it took up on the left side, and the right is spotted all over. *spread to the lungs, few spots there * Then it went to spine on the lumbar, decided to take up some spots there while it also traveled up into the brain and took 2 more spots at the base of the skull. There it was. Verdict delivered. So, I ask him the question that I didn’t want, “what’s the timeline for…me?” and he couldn’t tell me. He said he didn’t know how long I have had Cancer, and so we don’t know when it started. He told me that with the treatments that are going to take place it is going to be a “see what happens” and adjust. He couldn’t give me a timeline and so, in that moment if he didn’t have an answer for me, I did. I was going to be fine. He asked me, in true wonder, if I ever fell and fainted, if I couldn’t touch my nose and if I had all these signs that I was walking around with cancer just spreading away and I didn’t. I was in a Mosh Pit in April. I was unloading thousands of pounds of pet food from January through the end of April. I didn’t know I had it then and I was doing fine, now that I know I have it and I’m working on kicking it in to remission I’m ahead of it. Sunday, the 14th, I get a port put in my chest and told it’s for the chemo and then by the afternoon they kick me out and by Sunday night, I’m back home. In 4 days, I got my 42 years of life put in a burning bright crystal-clear reflection of what it truly means to live every single day to your absolute best and fullest and take nothing for granted, tomorrow is not ever promised and so leave it all on today. Never let the bad days win and as long as you are here kicking, they are all good days.
What have I done since?
* 5 rounds of radiation, completed that first (last?) radiation treatment and they just blasted my brain for 5 days. I got a special mask to wear so I couldn’t move and the X-Ray machine made noises that reminded me of Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine”.
Radiation doesn’t hurt, it’s just weird knowing what they are doing in your brain for 15/20 minutes a session.
* 3 rounds of Chemotherapy, as of yesterday the 28th. This was my first FULL treatment with KU including the treatment that was finally approved after the allergic reaction day.
*Started taking the Braftovi, 3rd pill form of Chemotherapy. It was my mutation drug and tells the Chemo WHERE to attack and not just blanket me with it… from how it was explained to me.
What else is new? How do I feel?
I feel really fine physically, I have had some side effects but nothing like crippling of day.
I was originally denied the drug that was added by KU for the second drug “of the same family” however this one has a chance to give you an allergic reaction, so I went to the big building and sat in front of a couple of nurses while they put two IV’s in me and started the, hopeful, third part of my Chemo treatments, so they could watch and make sure I didn’t have a reaction. Just before they started, Heide’s laptop was about to die and there was no clear place to plug it in. I told her there might be something in the waiting room? So, she went to see if that was the case and continued to do her work. I am so happy that happened like this, because in 13 minutes from her leaving the room, your boy was Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction. Basically, I started to get rashes, my belly felt weird and I thought maybe I needed to take a little #2? The nurses were like, can you get stand or do you want a bed pan? Now, things were ringing and the room started to just dim out and they looked at each other and I could tell “no, I don’t think I’m standing”. They flew into action, I got so much benadryl in my left IV and the other nurse is pumping things in the IV that’s in my right arm while injecting me with an Epipen and it BOOM I come out of it.
They talk to my Dr, he said to try again but this time at half the speed.
They broke it down like this:
Remember in Harry Potter where they had to sneak under the sleeping Cerberus to get past without him waking up? That is what we were trying to do with my immune system, get passed it so we could get to the bad parts without it realizing. SOOOO, we tried again, half speed, and this time we just let the rashes start on my palms before stopping in again, thankfully.
Just a full day from 7am to 5pm of allergic reactions and more IV’s and SO much benadryl I’ll be good for 2 summers of grass, just to make sure the insurance knows I need the original medication the Dr asked for. Gosh, aren’t they the best.
Just before my second treatment, my port started to produce a clear liquid. It is basically a cork in my right peck that they can put my treatments in and it stays in me, but it got infected under the skin. When I did the allergy treatment they didn’t use it and that is why I had the 2 IV’s.
The Dr said we would replace the port, in and out procedure, nothing crazy. *The DNA tests came back, that was a lie*
That day was today (Wed. 7.22.26) and I knew I needed to update this site. Since it was infected to the point that it started to develope a pocket, I bet you could fit a quarter in it from all the water I could squeeze out after a shower, they made the call to give me a pic line and an open wound until it heals! Winning.
Then once it is healed I get to go back and get a brand new port, but they will dig out a new hole in my chest and put it there. I am Frankenstein and the Hulk at the same time. Hulkenstein. If you see me and I have these new tubes coming out of my arm, that is the pic line, if you see me and I look like those old school micro machines where you put the coin in the back and it did a wheely, that is me using my old port hole for change storage. Basically, didn’t quite get the outcome TODAY like I hoped, but again, I’m on the path to where I need to be and I’ll get there.
***Update, 7.29.26***
I left the last entry however it really went sideways within 24 hours. On Thursday the 23rd, I woke up and the bandage already looks like it was letting some fluid in. The Wound Care team told me I should hear from someone within a day, so I didn’t sweat it too much. They called and said I would have an appointment with them on the 10th of August to see someone about my open wound. I’m not a Dr however this was already producing more fluid and they told me to leave it alone until my appointment… something didn’t fee right.
I talked with my nurse at KU, Kayti, she’s always on top of things and she said that appointment time frame did seem correct, and I explained it was already showing that it was still producing things; so we put an over bandage on the already existing bandage because I was told to NOT touch the open wound on my chest. Jameson asked why they didn’t do a closed wound, and that would have been better!
Anyway, I put the new bandage on and go about my day. Around 3pm I take my shirt off to check because it was feeling a little sore and kinda had some weight I could feel. As soon as I took my shirt off, and luckily I was standing up to the counter of the restroom, the entire contents of the original packaging had become so saturated, so moist with puss and fluid that it fell in the sink and took about 3′ of packing with it. I took a photo, sent it to Kayti and she called pretty much immediately with “How do you feel about the Emergency Room right now?” If she said I had to, I guess I’m going.
So, shortening this up here a bit, I went into the ER on Thursday, 7.23.26 at 4:30pm about 6 1/2 hours in the waiting ER waiting room, another 24 hours in the ER closet of a room almost to the dot, then a stay at the “Tower” until Monday afternoon, 7.27.26, to make sure that this infection in my open port hole didn’t turn into a blood infection and, well, really be a big issue. They pulled so much blood out to make sure that didn’t happen and then flushed my pic line and gave me all the new AntiBiotics through the pic line, some medicine through it, basically continued to use this NEW line I just got put in a day before I showed up. Now my pic line is really sensitive where it goes into my bicep. If you don’t know what a pic line is (and I barely do just cause i have one, I think it’s pic line but it could be picc or pick?) anyway, it inserts into the inside of your bicep with about a 3′ long tube that goes under your skin, around your armpit, up around your right peck and sits and drip and pulls right about your heart. SO, since it didn’t have time to heal, it ended up swelling and also borderline infected. Even during Chemo yesterday they had to change it because of the blood buildup. If you were a betting individual you should have your money on a new pic line any day now…
I went to see my Dr yesterday and he said regardless of being on this new AntiBiotic we would move forward with Chemo yesterday and I get my take home drip, so I’m back to being Bane covered in tubes.
I go in tomorrow and have the pump removed for the weekend.
Upcoming stuff:
Aug 4th, labs and bloodwork
Aug 5th, MRI on my brain to make sure the Radiation, radiated.
Aug 6th, My mom’s birthday be sure to say HBD
Aug 10th, Wound Care visit
Aug 11th, 4th round of Chemo
Aug 12th, PCP visit with pump
Aug 13th, take home pump removal
Aug 15th, MY birthday
Aug 18th, Office labs and bloodwork
…. I have more tour dates than a Rock band! Come see me on tour!!!