One of my best friends just passed away from throat cancer.

He got cancer at 6 years old and lost his leg to it. His prosthetic he wore in college was how he earned the nickname "Knubbs"

He completely beat that cancer and at 18 was given a clean bill of health and told that he had beat it and would not go back into remission.

At 22, he was diagnosed with cancer in his tongue. Some of us thought the doctors had been wrong 4 years earlier, or it was caused by the cigarettes, but both were wrong. Turns out he had a rare form of viral caused cancer that had only ever effected 2000 people under the age of 65 EVER.

He went through Chemo and had half his tongue removed (which was replaced by tissue from his arm) and they found no cancer. But 9 months later, it showed back up in his lymph nodes. He opted to not remove them as it would require removing the rest of his tongue and his vocal cords as well. But without removing the growths the cancer was too aggressive for the Chemo to overcome.

He passed earlier this year and had a beautiful memorial. It was hard for me, but it was even harder for my sister, who had dated him for 2 years after I had introduced the two of them. She was the one person he ever TRULY loved in his life but she was still discovering who she was and had to end the relationship two months before he was diagnosed.

There are only three people in my life that I've ever called my "best friend" and he was one.

RIP Joe