Cancer patient urging others to be assertive with doctors

PINE BELT, Miss. (WDAM) - For months, Edward Swindoll’s doctors convinced him that he was fine.

Now, at 30, he is battling Stage 4 cancer.

Swindoll was diagnosed in December with a rare form of melanoma, where growth starts on the inside of the body.

“Make sure you go to the doctor,” Swindoll said.

Swindol’s wife, Jennifer, said to listen to what your body had to say.

“You continue to go into the doctor, what?” Jenniofer Swindol asked. “If something doesn’t feel right? Don’t think you’re too young.”

The father of three had been stressing his health concerns to his doctor since August. Swindoll said that he was instructed to go home and stretch.

“I remember coming home one night and (him) stretching, because his doctor told him to do that,” Jennifer Swindoll said. “And then finally when, you know, over the weekend, he wasn’t moving much. had stopped eating. I knew that something more serious was wrong.

“He went to the doctor over and over since August, and there was nothing being done and it continually got worse. And so we went to the ER that night, but we were thinking it was something simple. Maybe his kidneys? So, when they hit you with the news and he’s 30 years old ....”

The father said the onset was a process.

“This went on for, you know, three months, all the way up until, you know, the middle of December, when my wife finally made me go to the emergency room,” Edward Swindol said. “It took getting so bad to where I couldn’t get off the couch one Sunday morning.

“And it was actually that night that we found out that I had cancer.”

Edward Swindoll is urging others to be assertive towards your doctors.

“Be assertive,” he said. “You know, demand that you know that there’s something wrong. Don’t let them just keep giving you the runaround.”

Now, the husband and wife pair travel to Houston, Texas, every three months for his treatments.

The community recently held a fundraiser for the family, embracing them during a time of need.

Both Swindols said the outpouring of support from the community has helped keep them going.

“Yeah, I mean, the continued support and prayers that we’ve gotten from the community over the last few weeks just have really, you know, helped us get through this journey,” Swindoll said.

The family is taking everything one day at a time and hopes that the father of three starts to feel better.

“We’re gonna get through this and he’s gonna be a testimony--a walking testimony,” Jennifer Swindoll said.

The family has accounts for the public to donate through Hancock Whitney Bank under the Edward Swindoll Benefit Account and Priority One Bank under the name of Benefit Account/Jennifer Ann Swindoll.

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