It was the night before the first game of football season for the Harding Academy Wildcats, but junior nose guard Jake Wells had bigger things on his mind than offensive plays and defensive strategies. He had just found out his girlfriend had cancer.
Sophomore Heidi Abston and Wells had been dating a little more than three months when doctors discovered Abston had Ganglioneuroblastoma, a rare form of nerve-attacking cancer. Abston had surgery in April to remove a tumor from her spine and found out it was cancerous in September.”I don’t think I’ll ever forget that night and how much it shook me,” Wells said. “It’s made me less focused on each day and made me really look at the big picture. It’s God’s plan, and you never really know what’s going to happen.”Abston said what worried her the most about having cancer was the change in appearance.”I think I was more nervous about what I was going to look like,” Abston said. “Being a 15-year-old girl, that’s what I’m going to think. I was thinking, ‘I’m going to be bald.’ I don’t care now.”Wells said that although he and Abston have had their struggles in their relationship, he still does his best to support her. “Our relationship has had its rough times with just frustration and everything,” Wells said. “I’ve always told her that I would be here for her but that more than anything God is here for her.”Abston said nothing has been easy about the process but her relationship with God is what gets her through.”This experience has definitely made my relationship with God stronger,” Abston said. Wells recently shaved his head in honor of Abston and said he found this to be an action that shows his support for her.”I told her I would shave my head for her ever since the first night she told me she had cancer,” Wells said. “I really wanted to support her, and I felt the best way was to be bald right beside her.”Abston’s advice for others is to chase their worries away by leaning on God at all times.”My advice is just to say close to God,” Abston said. “I don’t think you should fear as much because God is there.”Wells said this situation would be too much to bear if they were not Christians.”I don’t know how we would do anything without God,” Wells said. “There is no way we could even get out of bed.”Abston said the community of Searcy has been a big help during this rough time in her life.”I want to thank Harding and the people in Searcy because they have been a tremendous support,” Abston said.According to Wells, the most important thing is for him and Abston to lean on God before leaning on each other.”Before you rely on each other, rely on God,” Wells said. “We have always tried to keep God the center of our relationship.”
