Andy was seventeen when he became very ill.  First he was diagnosed with acute leukemia.  After further testing his diagnosis was changed.  He did not have leukemia but the doctors did not know what was causing him to be so sick.  Andy had a dangerously low white blood count and his platelet count was also very alarming.  Many tests could not be done because of this.

    After a specialized scan, a tumor showed up below his sternum.  He was then diagnosed with a germ cell cancer tumor, a rare type of cancer.  Chemotherapy was started immediately, but doctors were still baffled with many of his symptoms that didn’t fit the disease.  New symptoms appeared daily.  He began to experience stomach pain, no appetite and an enlarged liver.  A new series of tests were started and doctors also believed that Andy had Wilson’s disease; a disease that doesn’t allow the liver to rid the body of copper.  Chemotherapy was stopped and other treatments were started to cleanse Andy’s body of the copper that had built up.  But still many of symptoms were still present that didn’t fit either of these two diseases.

    Andy never gave up.  He was a junior at Elder High School where he was a very good student, a member of the band and the track team.  He faced all of the challenges in his life head on and did so also with every new diagnosis the doctors made.

     The angels called Andy home on December 14^th 2003 after one month in the hospital.