Read Brian Shelly's story,
My name is Brian Shelly and I am a 50 year old cancer fighter, survivor and WARRIOR. I came across your website in hopes that I can possibly find some assistance. I was told in April of 2017 that I had approximately one month to live and was diagnosed with advanced stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma of the left tonsil, and if I were to survive that although I am the living Rocky Balboa ( a fighter from the same neighborhood of Kensington and once an amateur boxer in Philadelphia) that I would literally be in for the fight of my life. I was all alone and I was scared and after what I had endured 4 years prior it took a lot to scare this tough "Philly Guy". Let me try and briefly explain , in 2011 after my 2 children graduated from high school I wrote a book about my growing up poor and becoming an alcoholic and drug addicted dealer in the streets of Philly's Badlands ( Kensington), the book is titled "DRUNKENEESE" and after it was published I decided to go and visit an old friend in Tampa Bay ,Florida to visit a friend who I hadn't seen since childhood. While there a woman who I hadn't seen since I was released from the U.S. Army in 1989. I met with the woman who had shown me photos of a child that she carried in her wallet and the child looked almost identical to my son Brian who I had to my then ex wife Dina. The woman explained that the child in the picture was my son but it wasn't Brian it was Austin, she explained that she had gotten pregnant by me in 1989 and never told me because she decided at the time to reconcile with her husband whom she was separated from at the time. I couldn't deny the child who is an adult now nor did I care to, but she had never explained why she never tried to find me and I later found out that she didn't even raise my son , she had left him as an infant with her ex husband and his family who raised him properly. I started to sort of try and rekindle a short relationship that never truly developed to begin with and that's when things got really bad. I was clean and sober for quite some time and she was extremely active in her alcoholism. She also had another son from her marriage who moved into her home and he was also an active alcoholic and it wasn't long before he and I started to go at it with each other. I was also an interventionist for troubled teenagers at the time and the job required for me to travel a lot. When I would travel he would get drunk with his mother and it wasn't long until they were getting drunk daily and trouble started as he would try to bully her for money and anything else he could. The next thing you know I started to drink after a long period of sobriety and one day after drinking at a club with her, him and a few of my friends, I got into a fist fight with him because I couldn't tolerate his constant bullying. Well, it only got worse and he eventually had a drinking buddy who also happened to be a sheriff arrest me. He also obtained a protective order against me and I was no longer able to go to the house where he lived with his mother. She even went to court on my behalf but his drinking buddy sheriff's word held in court over the truth told by an outsider. I ended the relationship after being arrested several times for protecting her from her abusive son and I moved to another town. One night after she called me crying hysterically I went back to the house to get her away from him and once again I was arrested for violating the court order. I wasn't so lucky this time and the judge hated to do it because he knew that I was the only victim in the situation, but I broke the law and a court order and the State of Florida didn't care about the truth or the situation, they saw a profit in me, and as a prisoner for profit state they wanted to put me in prison for 10 years but the judge who had no choice because of the design of the laws sentenced me to a level 7 maximum security Florida Prison for 5 years. I had never ever been in any legal trouble in my entire life until then. I was starved, beaten, gassed and tortured constantly by Florida Dept. Of Correction Officers because I was a Yankee from up North. That abuse continues today for many inmates that made mistakes and society has turned a blind eye on . The only good thing about prison was that I was able to teach and educate other inmates and I had also took courses to become a licensed and Ordained Minister. I was released from prison in Nov .2016 only to return to Philadelphia and to a horrifying situation, my daughter Nicole who was my personal Angel , born with the same infection that killed her sister my daughter Devon who died in my arms had become a crack and heroin addict and was also prostituting herself on the streets of Kensington and was missing. I wasn't out of prison for 3 days and all hell was breaking loose, as I went kicking crack house doors down and holding drug dealers at gunpoint searching for her. I finally got information from an undercover DEA officer who is also a friend of mine and I had to have Nicole arrested to save her life, as I was literally losing mine. I was offered a spot on a Comcast Cable show that would eventually have led to my own television show but God had other plans. A fan of my online show had kept insisting that I have a lump that was on my neck looked at by medical professionals, the fan was deeply concerned and she was also a nurse who knew that what I considered to be a swollen gland might be a problem and one day after waking up in excruciating pain I went to the emergency room on Frankford Avenue and after tests I found out. The Dr. diagnosed me with cancer. I had just literally survived a life that not many human beings could ever survive and now I was literally handed a death sentence. I reached deep inside of my heart where a tiny glimmer of a spark remained for God who at one time was fire inside of me and with passion. I didn't ask God to save or spare my life, I thanked him for the life he'd given me and I was lonely and extremely tired but mostly I was ready to meet Him, I was literally out of faith and I was out of gas. However, there was something very special about that nurse who convinced me to go to the hospital that kept me wanting to know more about her. So I decided to put the gloves back on and climb into the ring of life for my final round. I'm not going to sugarcoat the process or minimize the treatment that I endured from beginning to end the entire fight was BRUTAL, period ! However, that little flame of God is now a passionate inferno, I am in remission, however, I needed emergency surgery recently and had my C3&C4 disks in my neck replaced due to cancer treatment damage and the surgery failed, leaving no more options to treat my chronic pain syndrome. I refuse to take any opioid pain medications, I can get a prescription for anything that I need but I choose God instead and if the Dr.s are correct then I could go paralyzed at any time but if God is right I'll never use my wheelchair again. Oh, and remember that fan who was a concerned fan who was a nurse? Well, on JANUARY 10, 2020 Debbie became my beautiful bride and made me the luckiest, and happiest man on the planet. My daughter Nicole has just celebrated 3 years clean and my son Brian has made me a proud Pop-Pop by giving me a beautiful granddaughter. Today I have graduated from a Christian Living Program for men who struggle with life ,drugs and addiction that society has thrown away and I have dedicated my time and life to God and The Lord to help others, if I can put a smile on just 1 face today, then my entire life was worth every minute and as I continue on my path trusting in God, the rest of my life is none of my business. Cancer tries to destroy everything in it's wake, especially the victims and their families. It's a lonely place to be in and that's what CANCER WARRIORS mission is, to let cancer patients, fighters, SURVIVORS and their families know that we've through the battles and that nobody fights alone. We're CANCER WARRIORS FOR CANCER WARRIORS! Making cancer patients, fighters and survivors not just feel like they are battling a hideous disease, but that they are at war and that they will win that war, making them WARRIORS!
GODSPEED, Brian Shelly
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