Good News: White Deer family uses faith to push through cancer diagnosis

WHITE DEER, Texas (KFDA) - A cancer diagnosis is always serious and sometimes life threatening. However, an area couple’s journey over the last few months is an example of hope and progress in the battle against cancer.

Tim Bolding, who was recently diagnosed with cancer, is planning for the future on his land south of White Deer. A few months ago, some thought this would not be taking place.

“We were at BSA hospital there in Amarillo and after they ran all the tests they came back in and said ‘we need to run another series of tests’ and the doctor came back and said ‘it’s pancreatic cancer.’ I said ‘what are my chances’ and he said ‘less than one percent survival over the next few months,’” Tim Bolding said.

His wife, Kandy Bolding, said hearing the diagnosis news wasn’t the most difficult part, though.

“I think the most difficult part of it was that they were not giving us a chance,” Kandy Bolding said.

With the devastating development, the couple simply acted on faith.

“Even though some devastating news had been given to us, we didn’t believe that God was finished with Tim yet,” Kandy Bolding said.

They didn’t lose hope and instead, they clung to their faith.

“We are a faith based family, we have been for 42 years, Kandy and I,” Tim Bolding said.

Kandy Bolding said as they prayed, other people came into their lives through the medical field to help them. Those prayers began to be answered through the BSA Harrington Cancer Center.

Not everyone diagnosed with cancer will survive, but now there is so much more hope in the fight against it.

“A lot of new advancements, a lot of new technology that we’re bringing here so that we can give better quality of life and more years that we’ve never seen before,” said Curtis Reneau, director of BSA Harrington Cancer Center.

A doctor spoke more on the cancer diagnosis and the new treatments.

“Patients that get diagnosed with cancer have much more options than they’ve had in the past. Historically, the past 30 years we’ve only had chemotherapy,” said Dr. Andrew Mak, Medical Oncology & Hematology, BSA Harrington Cancer Center.

Patients can now take pills and do other types of therapy to battle cancer. Thankfully, Tim Bolding’s treatment has been very successful.

“A couple of weeks later they said ‘actually, y’know we think you have maybe a 25 percent chance of survival,” Tim Bolding said.

Mak said things are looking up for those diagnosed with cancer.

“We’ve been able to prolong survival and life to greater extremes that we never could have imagined 10, 20 years ago,” Mak said.

Tim Bolding, leaning into his faith, is still in this fight.

“My doctors now believe that I have a more than reasonable chance at completely beating this. Not just beating this, but totally annihilating cancer,” Tim Bolding said.

Tim and Kandy Bolding are very thankful for their entire team.

“It’s a support staff that includes social workers, licensed professional counselors, nurse navigators that will walk people through this journey,” Reneau said.

And as Tim Bolding said, this is some good news for everyone.

“The good news for me is that I’m going to live through this. The good news for the people of the Texas Panhandle and the greater Panhandle area is that we have the Harrington Cancer Center where everyday over there they are curing cancer,” Tim Bolding said.

What started as a devastating prognosis, through the help of a local foundation and a lot of love and a lot of faith has turned into an amazing recovery story and all kinds of good news.

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