Cancer and Clinical Services Patient Stories

Nathanael Durbin was a college freshman — a healthy, successful student athlete on the Wittenberg University Tigers basketball team who stayed in great shape and was happily dating his high school sweetheart.

Shortly after returning from a mission trip in Haiti, Nathanael (or Nathan, as his friends and family call him) began experiencing pain in his shins. As a lifelong athlete, he’d felt shin pain before and dismissed it as a case of shin splints. After a couple days of ever-increasing pain, however, his mother strongly encouraged him to visit the ER.

While Nathan’s bloodwork seemed fine initially, he was shocked when he received a phone call shortly thereafter, this time with markedly different news. Nathan was told he might have leukemia. While nothing was confirmed, he was told to go to The James immediately.The diagnosis? Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL. “I thought about all of the things I would miss if I didn’t make it,” he said, “or what I wouldn’t be able to do anymore if I got really sick. What would my life look like? No one ever expects these things to happen to them. It shook my world.”

Immediately surrounded by friends, family and his girlfriend, Maddy, Nathan felt a loving and strong support system around him. “(But) not just from family and friends,” he shared. “The nurses and doctors at The James were so supportive. They care so much about their patients. It’s more than just treating the disease – they genuinely care about you,” he said. “You can feel the love and support.”

After two rounds chemotherapy, Nathan went into remission, and he realized that life can be way too short and unpredictable. He proposed to Maddy on New Year’s Eve two months later. “She was my rock the whole time,” he said, and they married six months later.

Still on treatment during the engagement, Nathan was doing well, and despite a fever on his honeymoon that hospitalized him for six days, he was thoroughly enjoying life, starting to take a few classes at Columbus State and even talking to the Wittenberg basketball coach about his future on the team.

But shortly after Thanksgiving and a little more than a year in remission, Nathan contracted a fever. Thinking it was a normal infection, he didn’t worry too much, but a few weeks later, doctors confirmed that Nathan had indeed relapsed and that the cancer was back and more prevalent than before.

“I couldn’t believe it was happening again,” he said. “And the first thing I thought was, ‘All right, let’s do this again. Let’s put on those boxing gloves and kick this thing again.’”

His new treatment started the next day, and Nathan was home by Christmas, preparing to receive a bone marrow transplant.

That spring, he received a transplant from a donor in Germany.

Nathan has now been in remission for three years, is graduating from The Ohio State University with degrees in both Finance and Economics, and most importantly, he and Maddy are about to celebrate their four-year wedding anniversary.

Additionally, one year after Nathan first got sick, Maddy switched into the medical field and will be starting as a nurse at The James this summer.

“Having all of the love and support was the big difference, and keeping a positive mindset,” Nathan said. “Cancer can take so many things away from you, including your life, but it can’t take away love, joy and hope.”