Paul's Story

Paul was active duty with the US Air Force and loved serving his country. He joined the United States Air Force right out of high school in 2001. During college he met Tammy and they were married in October of 2009. They welcomed their son in 2013 and daughter in 2016.

In 2017, Paul attended several back-to-back trainings and sustained a muscle trauma and was being treated for his injury. Over the next year, the pain persisted and when he returned from a deployment, additional testing was done. We found out that he had stage 3 colon cancer at age 35. This was a shock to everyone as he was in perfect health and his only symptom was muscle pain which happened after a training injury.

Paul’s encounter with cancer was a battle. Once he was diagnosed, a treatment plan was quickly put in place. Two weeks into treatment, he became septic and had the biggest fight for his life. After being in the ICU over a month, he started to slowly recover. Over the next six months, Paul was in and out of the hospital but fought to be there for his family. Once he was healthy enough, his goal was to create as many memories as he could with his family because we never knew what tomorrow would bring. No matter how he felt from treatment, he always wanted to do things as a family so we could cherish every moment we had. He loved having "dude time" with his son going to the movies and daddy daughter time snuggling and coloring. He loved watching the kids play outside and taking trips around the neighborhood in the golf cart. Throughout all the treatments and hospitalizations, trips to Disney became our family getaway in creating long lasting family memories. During this time, it became his dream to create a nonprofit, to help families navigate cancer once he beat it himself. We were fortunate to spend another year and a half together making magical moments with our family and friends.

Paul and Tammy had 18 wonderful years together. Unfortunately, Paul lost his battle unexpectedly February 14, 2020. During our time together he would always ask our son, “what is your job?” and our son would respond “to protect our family”.  Paul would ask him “why” and our son would respond with “because our family is important, our family matters the most.” In order to help keep Paul’s memory alive, Protecting What Matters was created. During his battle, Paul did whatever he could to help us create moments we will always remember and cherish.  We wanted to give other families that are battling cancer those same opportunities in hopes to bring some joy to their lives during a hard time and to help strengthen their bond as a family.