e quickly lost weight. At one point, he was left with 85 pounds on his 5-foot-11-inch frame. It would take him two years to return to his normal body weight.

I remember a visit I paid to my cousin at this point in his treatment. He sat quietly on the living room couch wearing a brown, floppy corduroy hat to hide his balding head. His body was so thin and frail that it made me realize that this wasn't just "cancer," this was his life hanging in balance.

To combat the weight loss, Wes had to have a food tube placed in his nose. When he wasn't using it, he would wrap the tube around his ear. He remembers how his dad would sometimes come up behind him while he was watching television and feed him Ensure because of Wes' reluctance to eat. He would suddenly feel cold stuff in his stomach.

"I would turn around to see what was going on, and the Ensure would go everywhere," he says, laughing.

They would later call these episodes "Ensure explosions." Wes says that although it was a difficult experience, he found some things to laugh about.>>>