EUGENE, Ore. (KMTR) – While most people who attended the Rose Bowl have since returned to Oregon and shared stories with friends and family, one man is still reveling in roses since he went to the game for free.
The Willamette Valley Cancer Institute gave two of their cancer patients tickets to the Rose Bowl game. The tickets came in as a donation.
Cody Davis was one of the winners. The typical 25-year old is a husband, father and hard worker. He was recently diagnosed with stage-three Hodgkin’s Lymphoma cancer.
Davis told NewsSource 16 he and his wife had just traveled to the coast for their anniversary when he came back sick with a cold. He went to the doctor and that’s when it all began. They had been married for about a year and recently given birth to a new son, Jackson. In light of their new life together, they bought a new sedan to fit the family and moved out of their apartment and upgraded to a duplex.
“It’s not something you expect or foresee,” he said.
Days before the big game, Davis was receiving treatment when his friend Barry arrived to keep him company. The two both saw a poster advertising the tickets. Davis shrugged at the idea of giving it a shot, but did it anyway with the encouragement of his friend. Minutes later, a doctor and nurse came upstairs and handed him two tickets to Pasadena.
“Never in my life, I mean, I just thought I’d be stuck at home watching the bowl game,” Davis said with a big smile on his face. “I was so excited that my IV came out and started hurting real bad. It started going into my tissue and I was freaking out, but I was happy all at the same time!”
Davis, an avid Duck fan, just so happened to be wearing a Rose Bowl shirt the day the doctor presented him with the tickets.
For five days, Davis escaped the stress of everyday life and got away from the stress of battling a deadly disease.
While in Pasadena, Cody said he didn’t buy too much but certainly kept mementos from the game like the tickets and programs. He said his memories from Pasadena came home without any thoughts of cancer.
“I just felt freedom. Basically, for those 20 seconds or a minute, whatever, while everyone was screaming after they said the clock hit zero before he spiked it. You know, everybody just erupted and it was just amazing! That was probably the coolest feeling I’ve ever had,” Davis said.
Davis continues to go for treatment twice a month. He said the chemotherapy is starting to worsen for him, but he has learned through this experience that anything is possible. He said he plans to take advantage of all of the good days he has.
The tickets Davis received were part of a special program WVCI offers to help cancer patients escape the life with cancer. They said they want their patients to have a life outside of their treatment.
If you’d like to donate to WVCI, click
here.
