In the words of Jordon Tucker, “Dude, I’m a walking, talking miracle. I am super, super thankful all the time. I got the best family, the best friends. I cried like a baby the first time I mowed. I don’t have anything to be upset about.”
Who is this fellow who oozes gratitude even as he continues to undergo chemotherapy at Novant Health Cancer Institute near his home in Mount Airy, North Carolina?
He’s a 37-year-old father of three who endured excruciating pain from what he thought were hemorrhoidal symptoms before being diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer. That was 2022. The cancer isn’t gone. But the pain largely is. That, combined with care from his Novant Health medical team and support from friends and neighbors (think T-shirts, yard signs, hot dogs and lemonade) put the joy back into his life.
About the mowing. Tucker cuts grass for loved ones. As his best friend, Kenley Mitchell, said, “We’d rather work in the yard than eat.”
And did he say “Dude?” Yes, he did. “Dude, man, bro’, that’s him,” Mitchell said. “It’s unreal how positive he is.” Speaking for the community, Mitchell mirrors his friend’s optimism. “Jordon’s cancer,” he said, “is going to go away and stay away.”
Empathetic care from dedicated cancer specialists.
‘I knew what I had to do’
Tucker was teaching ninth-grade math and serving as an assistant football coach at North Surry High School in his native Surry County when the pain began and grew steadily worse. “It was super-bad,” he recalled. It ran from his posterior to his legs. He couldn’t sit without hurting. He couldn’t sleep for more than an hour at a time. He couldn’t fish (so you know it was severe). There was rectal bleeding.
He tried everything – 18 to 20 Ibuprofen tablets a day (consult your doctor before consuming that amount), hot baths, ice packs. Nothing helped. He hid it from everyone but his wife, Andrea, a teacher at Mount Airy High School. That includes their three children – Jace, 8, Adley, 5, and Sylvie. 1. They didn’t need to know daddy was hurting. Worst of all, he says, the pain kept him from being the energized dad they deserved.
By late 2022, it was unbearable. In February 2023, a colonoscopy revealed more than hemorrhoids. “I had prepared myself to have cancer,” he said.
He was angry at first, not at God but at what he was facing. Then his father, Joey, read aloud to him from Proverbs in the Old Testament: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
The spiritual pep talk having done the job, the fight was on. Or as Tucker put it, “I knew what I had to do.” He called his loved ones to share the news. He started chemo. He was about to discover that he wasn’t going to take this journey alone.
‘Jordon has influenced a lot of people’
In and around Mount Airy and all of Surry County, you can’t miss it.
Tucker’s family, friends, neighbors, students, former students and fellow church members at Dobson First Baptist have taken to wearing TuckerTough T-shirts. The back of the T-shirt states “Isaiah 41:10.” The first words of that Old Testament verse? “Do not fear, for I am with you.”
There are TuckerTough bracelets, hot dog suppers, lemonade stands, a basketball tournament, even yard signs. One goal is to raise funds to help the Tuckers with medical expenses. But it isn’t the only goal. “Everyone sees a T-shirt or a yard sign, it’s getting people to send up a prayer for him,” says Tucker’s best friend, Kenley Mitchell.
That same year in 2022, Tucker took a new job just down the road from North Surry to join Mount Airy High to teach and serve as an assistant football coach for the Granite Bears. It didn’t take long for him to capture the school community’s heart.
Walker Stroup, who graduated in spring 2024 from Mount Airy High School, was captain of the high school’s 2023 state championship football team. Stroup will never forget the sight and sound of “Coach Tuck” on the sideline, cancer be darned, shouting encouragement to the players with his trademark exuberance. “I told him multiple times, just seeing him at practice made my day,” Stroup said. “Even when he doesn’t feel the best, he makes you feel like you’re on top of the world.”
That explains why Stroup is the proud owner of two Tucker-Tough T-shirts and two TuckerTough bracelets.
Austin Taylor, head coach of the Mount Airy High football team, also has a TuckerTough T-shirt. “Everyone in this town has one,” he said.
Driving through Mount Airy, TuckerTough yard signs caught the attention of Dr. Karin Giordano, Jordon’s oncologist at Novant Health Cancer Institute in Mount Airy.
“Now that’s pretty cool,” she said. “That’s why I like working in a small community. People come together like that. Jordon has influenced a lot of people.”
‘Cancer is not a death sentence’
Tucker carries on.
Cancer is in his colon, liver and lungs, Giordano says, but it’s markedly improved and under control. Want to appreciate what many cancer patients must endure to get well?
Here, Giordano said, is Tucker’s current routine: “His treatment is every two weeks. It is a chemotherapy drug and another drug that blocks blood vessel growth to the tumor. He comes to the office every other Monday and is here for two to three hours. He gets labs, sometimes sees the provider. Then he goes home with chemo in a little pump that he has to carry around with him for two days. At the end of 48 hours, he comes back to the clinic to get the pump unhooked from his port.”
None of it puts a dent in Tucker’s spirit. “He knows the drill,” Giordano said.
On disability, no longer able to devote the hours required of teaching, Tucker is throwing himself into other labors of love. He cuts grass for family and friends. He’s a volunteer assistant football coach, focusing on the defensive ends. He mows the football game and practice fields. He helped spruce up the team’s weight and locker rooms. He relishes every moment, now more than ever.
“My attitude’s great, man,” he said. “I don’t wake up in the morning thinking about having cancer. I want to make sure that when people see me, I make somebody’s day better. Cancer is not a death sentence.”
The dude is TuckerTough.
