Life hasn’t been easy for Jason Cannon.
He underwent chemotherapy over a 10-year period in pre-teen years and, including two last month, has had three surgeries to remove two tumors from next to his brain and to deal with a cavernoma behind his right eye socket.
He could be bitter — and was for many years — but now wants to be “an example and inspiration for people through the glory and grace of God.”
While his prognosis, from two surgeries on March 22 for the cavernoma and to remove a tumor at the top of his head, is encouraging, Cannon’s physical future isn’t without concern. He will have a biopsy in June on a mass on the back side of his brain, one that doctors said could be malignant.
Cannon’s response: “I have absolute faith I will be fine,” just as he was with the previous tumors — neither was cancerous — and the cavernoma.
His wish is to return to work at Iola’s Walmart, where he has been an employee going on 11 years, and be around the many people — employees and customers — he has befriended.
Thursday doctors released Cannon, 35, to work light duty starting April 18. Full release is expected in early May.
CANNON was adopted by Jarvis and Elaine Cannon in Michigan and before he was old enough to put together much more than simple sentences — age 2 1/2 — he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Chemotherapy was ordered, including some experimental procedures.
“Part of the time I was a guinea pig,” Cannon said.
Once, he had a blue dye inserted in blood vessels between his toes — “With big, long (hypodermic) needles” — and a tiny fiber optic camera also was inserted with a mission to record whether the dye adhered to leukemia cells. The experiment failed when the camera malfunctioned. Cannon’s outcome was feet swollen to twice normal size.
Five years after his last treatment, during his senior year at Marmaton Valley High School, he was declared cancer-free, which was “a blessing and a weight off my (adoptive) parents’ shoulders,” Cannon said. He was happy with the assessment, in large measure because he knew it meant so much to his parents — “I grew up thinking they were my parents and they are my parents.”
Happiness otherwise was elusive.
When the chemotherapy started an outcome was the hair on his head fell out and he often was bloated. He also gained weight from times when hunger was intense and he, young and impetuous, ate with a vengeance.
“I got picked on a lot, physically in Michigan and verbally after we moved to Kansas,” Cannon said.
Kids can be cruel without knowing it and many unwittingly taunted the funny-looking kid with no hair and a big tummy.
Also, the move initially to Savonburg, from a populous city in Michigan, was culture shock, even for a kid.
“We moved in 1984 (when he was 9) and I hated Savonburg, where we first lived, and then Elsmore,” he said. “They were like little boxes,” with the experience being exacerbated by friendless days at school.
Years later he returned to Michigan, thinking it would be better, but was back in Elsmore in a matter of months.
“I couldn’t wait to get back,” Cannon said.
In his senior year at MVHS Cannon asked several classmates, in a effort to make friends, to his home for dinner. Only one showed up. Cannon made the best of the opportunity and, as it turned out, the effort paid off.
That summer the same kid came to Elsmore to visit a cousin and finding him not at home stopped by to see Cannon. They went fishing, found they had things in common and the newfound friend — his best friend from high school nowadays — agreed to teach him to play the guitar.
That was the start of a hobby that led Cannon to become a member of the band “Stampede,” which, in a round about way, led him to meet the woman he married last summer.
WHEN HE graduated from high school, Cannon had an interest in dolphins and thought being a trainer would be a wonderful life’s work.
Reality reared its head.
“The only school where I could go for dolphin training was the University of Miami (Fla.) and I didn’t have the money. Didn’t have the grades, either,” he observed matter-of-factly.
Junior college was a second choice. He worked in classes at Allen County and Fort Scott community colleges, along with odd jobs. He also was playing regular gigs with “Stampede,” including frequently ones at the Knight of Columbus Hall in Piqua, where one night he met a gal named Michelle.
“We dated for a while and then drifted apart,” he recalled. But, as sometimes occurs, there was a spark and they eventually got back together and were married last July 31.
“We have a fantastic relationship with each other and the Lord,” said Cannon, who said his spirituality grew significantly after he started attending Restoration Fellowship Church in Humboldt three years ago.
That post-dated another bout with physical problems that started with frequent headaches in the mid-1990s. The headaches were so severe that he was forced to go to Allen County Hospital’s emergency room one day, which led to discovery of a non-malignant tumor the size of a softball behind his left ear.
“It was completely removed,” Cannon said, and he thought all finally was moving forward.
Then, last year seizures and more headaches prompted another round of examinations: the cavernoma and second tumor were found. Surgeries for both, taking about six hours, were done on March 22 at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
Thursday he had staples securing incisions removed and doctors deemed he was progressing well.
“The hand of God was guiding the surgeons,” when the procedures were done, Cannon said. “I felt the Holy Spirit speaking to me, telling me that I was going to be a powerful man of God.”
HE AND MICHELLE returned to Elsmore Thursday after the visit with KU Med doctors. They live in the old house where he grew up with his parents.
His father died in 2009 and his mother is in the Iola Nursing Center.
“It’s a very old house and we haven’t had the money to do much to fix it up,” he said.
“It originally was a railroad shack that was added on to, but we feel we’re incredibly blessed to have a roof over our heads and to have each other,” he said of himself and wife Michelle.
As remarkable as it seems, Cannon isn’t distressed at the prospect of a possible fourth brain surgery.
He will have a biopsy to determine the status of the mass at the back of his head in June and doctors then will decide if and when surgery should occur.
“I’ll just let the Holy Spirit guide me and tell me what to do,” he said.
He feels tugged toward the ministry, which has evolved in the past several months at the Rev. Kelley Zellner’s church in Humboldt.
His fondest wish, said Cannon, isn’t strictly for his physical health but also “to help with the spiritual growth of others.”
He has quite a testimony to share.
