Fighting cancer with faith: Missionary returns home after doctors find cantaloupe-sized tumor in his chest

ST. ANTHONY — Elder Bowen Bailey began experiencing symptoms in April. He had just been transferred from North Pole to Alaska’s Kodiak Island, where he was serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

It started as itching and continuous sweating, but soon he began experiencing difficulty breathing.

“Things continued to get a little worse, and I continued to kind of struggle to breathe,” Bailey tells EastIdahoNews.com.

The 19-year-old was moved to Anchorage where he received medicine to stop the sweating but early this month, he contracted a severe cold with a wracking cough that wouldn’t go away.

Doctors initially thought Bailey had pneumonia or tuberculosis, but after performing an X-ray and CT scan, they found a cantaloupe-sized mass in the middle of his chest. Elder Bailey’s mission would suddenly come to an end as he was rushed home to eastern Idaho for life-saving treatment.

Fight for his life

Bailey served in the Anchorage, Alaska mission for 11 months before returning to St. Anthony two and a half weeks ago.

The massive tumor is uncomfortable — pressing his right lung tight against his chest to the point “you can just barely see the lining of my lung where (the tumor)’s pushing so big,” he explains.

Bailey’s family was in Oregon on a college basketball recruiting trip for his sister when they learned their missionary needed help and was returning to Idaho for medical treatment.

“It’s growing in the lymphatic system,” says Jon Bailey, Bowen Bailey’s father. “Imagine this big, massive mass, probably smaller than a volleyball but a very large cantaloupe, and it’s basically pushing his lung all the way to his ribs, so that there’s no use of that lung.”

Upon returning home, Dr. Tom Jones of Teton Medical Group immediately performed another biopsy which determined that tumor was growing outside of Bowen’s lung. Bowen was diagnosed with nodular sclerosis Hodgkin lymphoma.

Because the tumor is wrapped around so many vital organs, it can not be removed surgically but doctors strongly recommended chemotherapy to treat the cancer.

“If you’re pulling a cancer card, this is the best cancer to have,” Bailey says. “There’s maybe 98% (or) 99% chance of survival after five years. So basically, this is 100% curable — just going to take a little time and a little chemo to take care of it.”

Bowen started chemo on Wednesday and will complete a three- to four-hour session every other week for the next two months before receiving another PET scan to monitor how the cancer responds.

“They are very optimistic that the chemo would start to shrink it rather quickly, within the first two weeks to a month, and he would start to regain some of his lung capacity,” Jon Bailey says. “After two to four months, he would be able to breathe a lot better.”

The road ahead

The oncology nurse told Bowen that if he hadn’t returned home, he would have died within five or six months.

“The hard part is he went out (on the mission) with this (cancer), and it grew a lot while he was out there, and we didn’t realize that along the way,” Jon Bailey says. “I’m super proud of him. He’s just done an amazing job.”

In the last few months, Bowen’s life has been turned upside down on a roller coaster of health challenges and emotions, but he remains calm, optimistic and grateful for all the help he’s received coming home.

“The amount of love that I felt is just incredible,” he says. “Very grateful to this community that I live in — a very, very blessed town.”

Facing the future with faith and resilience

Bowen has a word of advice for his friends in Alaska and anyone facing cancer or serious health issues.

“Don’t quit ever, and always give your 110%. You work as hard as you can all the time, because in the blink of an eye, it could all be over and you could be jumping on an airplane to go home,” he says.

After the cancer is in remission, Bowen plans to attend Brigham Young University-Idaho and study agribusiness.

“Anyone who knows Bowen knows he’s one of the hardest-working young men you’ll ever find,” family friend Jacob Dahl shared. “Before his mission, he would get up early and move pipe, then go work a full day for a farmer, and then come home and move more pipe, take care of his animals, and fall into bed — only to do it all over again. He loves to work.”

Jon Bailey says it has been incredibly humbling to be on the receiving end of so much support from others, allowing the family to focus on helping their son and brother fight cancer.

“I’m not able to do everything on my business, but at the same time, that doesn’t matter to me as much as he does,” Jon Bailey says.

Bowen’s friends set up a GoFundMe account with a goal of $50,000 to help pay for medical bills. If you would like assist, you can contribute to his GoFundMe page or Venmo Jon Bailey.

Bowen is grateful to all his friends and neighbors who are supporting him, reaching out and welcoming him home.

“I’m going to get a little teary eyed, but I just can’t describe how grateful I am for all the friends in the community and my friends in Alaska and prayers,” Bowen says. “Prayer is a real thing. Anybody that tells you prayer don’t work, you better think again, because I’m absolutely certain it’s the only thing that’s carrying me through this.”