WOODVILLE – For 35-year-old Brandon McKee, life might have thrown a major curveball, but he’s got a community rallied around him to lend a helping hand.
The owner and operator of Jerry’s Saw Shop in Woodville, and the builder of custom fishing rods with McKee Rods, McKee was recently diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer (adenocarcinoma), which is non-small cell lung cancer.
“God’s gonna try us all sooner or later,” McKee said of the diagnosis.
It was a chance visit to a chiropractor for what he thought was a pinched nerve that led to the tests to discover his illness. McKee, who is a non-smoker, was accepted to MD Anderson for treatment, after being seen as an outpatient at Methodist and Texas Oncology, which begun a few weeks ago.
His fiancée Summer Bailey said that while everything sounds “incredibly scary,” he has an incredible eam on his side, and they are confident his cancer is treatable.
“We could have never dreamed that a chiropractor appointment would lead us to this, but here we are,” she said, and encouraged everyone to take preventative healthcare seriously.
McKee, who is known throughout the county not just as a businessman and devoted family man, but as a friend to many and someone who has supported many causes and volunteered whenever he could, has inspired several in the community to lend a helping hand with fundraisers and ongoing efforts to help offset some of the costs associated with his treatments.
On Sunday, the Bulldog Café in Colmesneil hosted a hamburger fundraiser for McKee, which sold (on a donation basis) 500 hamburgers within a couple of hours. McKee was thankful beyond words, he said, and especially thankful for everyone’s prayers.
Another fundraiser scheduled for Oct. 17 at 9 a.m. is a skeet shoot that will also feature a live auction, food on-site and lots of activities for the whole family. It will take place at 4300 FM 256 in Woodville, and the prizes include a Mossberg full-size .12-gauge pump action shotgun and a Weatherby Orton Grade A walnut .12-gauge. More items will be announced as prizes, and for anyone interested in donating or participating, they can call 409-200-8900.
At present, the cancer, which was found to have metastasized to his spine, is worse than initially thought, McKee reported in a post to social media, and although it is pushing against his spinal cord, he is due to begin radiation treatment which should alleviate the pain. McKee also was able to be accepted into a trial for people under 40 who are non-smokers and have the type of cancer he has. It begins two weeks after his last radiation treatment, and he is optimistic that it’ll knock out the mass in his lung “within the next year or so.”
For anyone wishing to donate to a GoFundMe that Summer set up, the URL is: https://gofund.me/07a362cbd, or it can be found by the title “A New Chapter We Never Expected.”
The GoFundMe also has a link to a CaringBridge page for McKee that she started, which she said is set up to update everyone on their journey in one place.
“I just can’t thank everyone enough for the love and support I’ve received since I got my diagnosis. Thank you somuch,” McKee said.
