While I suspected the worst, it wasn't until I was taken home for one day, prior to flying to Houston, that I really knew I was going to die. Over two hundred people from all over the country came to our house that day.

I was really surprised. I didn't think I had that many close friends. From the way everybody was acting it was obvious they'd come to say goodbye. My friend Dwayne Hamilton just broke down and cried.

Louise was pregnant at the time, and I thought to myself how sad it was that I'd probably never get to see my baby. By all rights, I'd be dead and gone before it arrived.

Louise was thinking the same thing and had made the arrangements for further surgery at M. D. Anderson. Though the doctors had told her there was no hope of my living, they said there might be a slight chance of prolonging my life a few more months through radical neck surgery. With that operation, there was a possibility that I'd be able to live long enough to see my baby before the cancer reached my brain.