Faith Sustains Leukemia Fighter, Bone Marrow Match Sought

Cancer fighter David Butcher and his wife, Anne, on leave from her job as pastor at Crystal Lake United Methodist Church in Lakeland, joined purple-shirted supporters at the 2013 Plant City Relay For Life at Plant City High School.

There, the Plant City couple discussed Butcher's role as a "poster child" for Be the Match, in whose name "Team Tomarrow" was raising money at the overnight American Cancer Society fundraiser.

Diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia on January 9, Butcher said he is looking for a bone marrow match.

"It was a little shaky at first," he said about his diagnosis reaction, "but we've been very blessed to have three grown kids and seven grandkids."

It's a life well-lived as much as it is a fight worth taking that keeps the Butchers commited to the cause of helping both themselves and other cancer fighters and caregivers run the course to a cure.

Indeed, the Butchers were training for the Disney marathon when David Butcher started "slowing down," as his wife put it.

"I was going long but I wasn't getting any faster," David Butcher said. "Then I wasn't going any longer because I was stopping and going."

Complaining of fatigue, Butcher went to the doctor, who after seeing the Plant City runner in December, left eight messages on his cell phone the day after Christmas.

"I knew something was going on, he was slowing down so much," Anne Butcher said. "By the time David was going to the doctor I was going to be surprised if it wasn't cancer. He was diagnosed and had chemotherapy two days later."

In search of a bone marrow donor, Butcher's case came to the attention of Be the Match, an organization that connects patients with their donor match for a life-saving marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant.

• See Be the Match online for information about the steps of donation, the transplant process, disease and treatment options and more.

The Plant City Relay For Life each year is one of the strongest Relay efforts in the state and nation, raising about a quarter-million dollars for the American Cancer Society and its work to raise awareness for cancer prevention, to support cancer survivors and their caregivers and to fund research to find a cure.

"This is amazing," David Butcher said. "Eventually we'll have cures for all kinds of cancer. They've come so far in so many years."

As for Butcher, he knows the road ahead depends on a donor match and a bone-marrow transplant.

"I won't live without one," he said.

"Our faith has certainly sustained us, no doubt," Anne Butcher said, who noted that cancer "has forced us to have difficult conversations with each other and with our kids."

"The type of conversations you don't always have with your children and your chidren's spoused," David Butcher added, such as "the fact that marriage is a work in progress every day" and that "every person is important," at work, at home and in the community.

Married for 29 years, the Butchers are living proof of the messages they aim to impart.

"We want to help explain the value of life every day," Anne Butcher said. "Cancer brings that to the forefront."