RHETT BAILEY - CARING BRIDGE WEBSITE

This is a great site to keep up with how Rhett Bailey (sophomore Elkmont football player)  is doing - CARING BRIDGE

Here is Rhett's story from the site.  Please visit and sign Rhett's guestbook.

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We've created it to keep friends and family updated about Rhett and his fight against lymphoma.  We are so blessed to be surrounded and supported by loving family, friends, church members, and communities from all over the world.  We love the Team Rhett and the Pray for Rhett websites, and now we have this great website to keep you all updated on this chapter in Rhett's life.  Please write us a note in our guestbook!  Thanks to everyone who has so thoughtfully supported us during this time.  We love you all!

Background Story

On the weekend before Easter Sunday, 2011, I was really sick and thought I had the stomach virus.  This was the second round of the stomach virus (or so we thought), so my dad got up early and took me to the Athens Limestone Hospital Emergency Room on Sunday morning.  There they hooked me up to IV's and ran tests on my stomach.  Little did we know that those tests were about to change my whole life.  That afternoon the ER doctor came in and told us that he was extremely concerned.  I had an intususception of the bowels (a blockage), and he had also saw some really large lymph nodes on a CAT scan that the hospital did.  He was concerned that this was cancer.....Scary words, but words that got everyone's attention really fast. 

I spent the night at Athens Hospital where I had a tube inserted into my nose and into my stomach.  This was to keep my stomach from sending stuff to my bowels.  It was also to keep me from throwing up.  Not a fun thing to do, but it was necessary.  My parents decided the next morning to ask for me to be sent to Huntsville Women's and Children's Hospital where they were a part of the St. Jude network.  We were not really sure we would need this option, but they wanted me to be a place that was used to seeing unusual things in children. 

When I arrived in Huntsville, I was pretty much immediately surrounded by doctors, nurses, surgeons, etc...They decided that I needed a biopsy and maybe exploratory surgery.  On Tuesday morning with at least 30 to 40 people waiting with me, I had surgery and had a large lymph node removed from my abdomen.  Dr. Gilbert at this time did not remove the intususception due to not knowing if we were dealing with cancer or just a problem with the bowel.  The doctors and nurses at Women's and Children's, just as the doctors and nurses from Athens Limestone Hospital, were wonderful.  After my surgery I felt pretty good and was even able to eat a little that night.  Unfortunately things took a turn for the worse with my condition and the weather for the next day.

The next two days of my life are two that needless to say I would never want to repeat.  Sometime after midnight I started throwing up and would continue to throw up until Thursday afternoon.  Early on Wednesday morning the worst tornado outbreak since 1932 occurred, and the hospital was hit by lightening and a power outage.  Back up generators came on, but the air conditioning just was not what I needed to feel better while heaving.  Additionally the machines they needed to complete my diagnosis were hit by the lightening and so the doctors could not complete the needed tests.  Again, Wednesday night was a horrible night, so the next morning the staff and doctors decided to move me to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis.  Because of the horrible conditions in Northern Alabama, an ambulance had to be sent from Memphis to get me in Huntsville.  Right before I left, I had an allergic reaction to the nausea medicine I was taking, and I was even more sick than I had been previously.  All these things said, it was a blessing that I was loaded into the ambulance and headed for Memphis.  It was here that I found the answers we needed for what was going on with me.

Finally, after four hours we arrived in Memphis at 8:00 p.m. that night.  The doctors and nurses started working on me immediately, and I finally fell asleep about 1:00 a.m. in the morning.  Tests were scheduled for about 7:00 a.m. the next morning so we were up early for those.  A wonderful team of surgeons came and met with us, and later that day they found out my bowels were in some serious trouble.  The bowels were not getting enough blood, so they decided to do surgery and remove the intususception.  They removed 15 centimeters of my small and large intestines plus my appendix.  They also removed a polyp to biopsy.  Then more waiting began.

With cancer I have found out that a lot of stuff is hurry up and wait.  Well, we did and on the next Monday the doctors told me that I had (and still have) Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma.  It is all confined to my abdomen area, but I have to have chemotherapy for the next four to six months to remove it all.  This is a challenge for me and for my family, but I know with God's help and the support of all my friends, family, and well just everyone, I am going to do great.  Finally, I have wonderful doctors and nurses here at St. Jude, and I am so thankful to be here.  Thanks for reading my story - there is more to come!