Douglas Anderson

Doug Anderson was like a brother to me. We  lived in the same neighborhood and his mother Katie and father Louie trated me like family, Katie started babysitting me when I was 3 or 4 years old so we definitely had some history. Over the years we always tried to stay in touch. After my wife and I moved back to the mainland in 2008 I found out he was living in Henderson and we were residing in North las Vegas so we got together and caught up from when we had last been in touch. I found out that he had been diagnosed with cancer in 2006 and that he had been through so much that it sounded like a bad country song where you lose everything but through it all he was still the great positive person I had always known. In October of 2010 I was diagnosed with stage 4 squamous carcinoma in the neck,throat and tongue. Doug was one of the first people I called because of his battles with cancer and I'll never forgot what he told me, he said you're not alone you will have a support group including me and told me to call him anytime for anything I needed. I can't tell you how happy I was to hear that Julie came into his life. When you are fighting cancer you need someone strong like your wife and family to keep you focused, I thank God for my wife all the time because I can't imagine going through this without her. I'm currently fighting my 3rd cancer, it's stage 4 lung lining cancer. Just to let you know, I never smoked. Because of our battle with cancer we called each other and updated each other on how we were doing. I was always a little nervous when I called beause I was afraid of what I might hear and vice versa. When I called him to tell him about my latest stage 4 cancer battle, he said ok let me tell you what I'm dealing with and he proceeded to tell me about his cancer which was very rare and was just accepted to a special clinical trial. I just laughed and said you always have to one up me, here I thought I would get the sympathy vote with my cancer but it was not to be, we both laughed and understood all we could do was fight on as long as we could. When Steve Jokela called and told us of Doug's passing it didn't come as a surprise and I know he fought the valiant fight to stay with his family as long as was humanly possible. I have some great pictures of Doug and I when we were kids and may funny stories that I hope to share with his family. I lost a chosen brother but God gained a great Christian.

Sad to hear the news about Dougs passing..I have not seen Doug since High School but when I talked with him at the reunion it was like I had talked to him every day. He had not changed from the happy guy I knew then and the news of his marriage to Julie seemed perfect.  We were all blessed to have know Doug Anderson.