“I truly feel like the richest man alive to have a healthy family and to just be blessed with this time with them,” said Gage Bullard, a cancer survivor and blood recipient. “Being here, looking back, it's just I mean, it's more than I could have asked for, more than I would have planned on my own even before I was diagnosed.”
Bullard’s favorite place to be is at home with his wife and their two beautiful children. A family he always hoped to build, but at one point wasn’t sure he would have.
“I was having, like, abdominal pain and stuff, and they didn't think it was anything major. They thought it was like my gallbladder or something. They weren't really worried about it. And then they found a mass and did a biopsy, and it turned out to be lymphoma,” Gage said.
It was when he was just a senior in high school that Gage was diagnosed with lymphoblastic lymphoma, a rare form of cancer. The future he had been planning, forever changed.
“I was planning on going to college in Kansas City and then doing mission work overseas. So that was my end goal. And then when I was diagnosed, pretty much, didn't even know if I would be able to go to college,” Gage said.
"Intense" is how Gage described the initial stages of his cancer treatment. He spent time in and out of the hospital, but eventually, he was able to attend Oklahoma Baptist University, a local college, enabling him to travel back and forth for his medical care.
“I was actually home for treatment one weekend when I was doing like the maintenance part of my treatment and that's when Morgan's family was in town, oddly enough,” Gage said.
Through many years of friendship between their two families, Gage and his wife, Morgan, first met as children. The pair reconnected just as the pandemic started and were married the following year. Morgan says it can be difficult to reflect on the hardships Gage went through before they were together.
“Yes, that's hard. But I'm also thankful because I feel like it's made him the man that he is today. And so I don't take that for granted,” Morgan said.
Due to Gage’s treatments, the couple wasn’t sure they would be able to have children, but they agreed to adopt if it came to that. Thankfully, their prayers were answered very soon.
“We were married four months, and then Morgan was pregnant with our son, and then three months after he was born, she was pregnant [again]. So, very unexpected. But like the best, the best blessing that you could ask for,” Gage said.
Now that he's cancer-free, Gage often reflects on all the people who prayed for him as he was going through treatment and the blood donors who provided him with necessary transfusions.
“I had several transfusions, and it was kind of the craziest thing because afterwards I felt more alive than I had in like weeks… To the people who do give blood, I would just say thank you. You're impacting lives and really saving lives. And to know that you might not ever get to meet that person, or you might not ever get to meet their future kids or spouses or all the people that they go on to impact in their lives. And I would just say thank you,” Gage said.
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