ASU A-Team Member Faces Cancer

Sep 19, 2008
KAIT8.com

JONESBORO, AR (KAIT) - For the Homecoming game Saturday, you'll notice the girls of the A-Team wearing lime green ribbons as they raise awareness for Lymphoma, a type of cancer. While these girls are supposed to be the most energetic ones on the field, one of their members can hardly get out of bed in the morning.

Jordan Farris, a Nettleton High School graduate, is just like any other girl... She works part time, she's a freshman in college, and she's dreamed of being on the Arkansas State Dance Team.

But in August, Jordan felt a lump in her neck and after talking with her mother and doctor her life was suddenly altered.

Jordan was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin's Lymphoma. On Wednesday, August 27th, the doctor said the dreaded word "cancer", and by Friday, they were removing the lump from her neck. After a CT scan, they realized there was a mass in her chest.

The doctor gave Jordan a 60-70% cure rate over the next five years and told her she would need chemo and radiation.

Jordan has chemo once every two weeks and that on top of her diagnosis has started to change even the easiest tasks. Jordan says the chemo part isn't so bad, it's the days that follow that she dreads.

"Your whole body is sore and run down and you feel like you have a fever but you don't and it's so frustrating, and then that wears off and you're not nauseas anymore. But you're just so tired, and fatigued and it's a kind of fatigue that you just feel helpless, you can't control. I'm ready for anything, give me chemo give me radiation, but no hair... I have not accepted that."

But Jordan doesn't let this keep her down. She's still going to class, she's still working, and she's still on the A-team...and she's still living her life.

" I live each day for that day but I look forward to tomorrow so much more. I didn't expect it, I didn't plan for it, but now it's my plan. I wasn't going to inspire people till I became the English professor, but now I get to inspire in a different way."

Jordan is so exhausted now, that she can no longer do the dances with the A-Team, but she does do their sideline routines and makes every practice.

As you head out to Homecoming, remember those lime green ribbons, and remember Jordan Farris.

A website has been set up so friends and family can keep in touch with Jordan and her condition.

If you would like to send Jordan a message or share your story with her, log onto the Caring Bridge website.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/jordanfarris