Live Oak, Florida. Population 6,843. A tiny town in north central Florida, the county seat of Suwannee County. There are oaks everywhere, hence the name. Each limb is drapes in Spanish moss, which, ironically, is neither.
Meet Quiet Will Carpenter. He’s a soft spoken kid. He doesn’t talk much. He is your all-American college kid. Honey brown hair. Honest smile.
Last year, he was a freshman at the University of Central Florida. A fierce swimmer, a competitive fisherman on the UCF Bass team. Will is also a football fanatic and pulls for the Jacksonville Jaguars—but hey nobody’s perfect.
He was studying mechanical engineering. A sharp kid like Will is talented enough to be designing space probes for NASA. Classic overachiever. This kid is going places.
He doesn’t talk much, but he’s the genuine article.
Last year, on Christmas Eve, Will had a sinus infection. No big deal. His lymph nodes were pretty swollen so his mother took him to the hospital. They were on the way to Christmas dinner with family when they made
the detour to the emergency room.
The doctor looked him over. It was no run-of-the-mill sinus infection. It was worse. Much worse. They never made it to Christmas dinner.
Within days, Will had already left school and began hardcore treatment. The mild mannered fisherman was subjected to the systenatic that is American Healthcare. He underwent all the usual oncology stuff. He was exposed to chemo, meds, and obscene amounts of daytime television.
His family survived on vending machine food. Slept in waiting rooms. Waited on test results. They cried. They prayed for miracles. Doctors ran more tests.
Will received radiation treatment on his face, spine and shoulder. He was administered every drug you’ve ever heard of, and many you haven’t. And recently, he was fitted with a gastronomy tube, simply so he can eat.
To say this past year has been “hard” is like saying World…