All Danny Lesslie can do right now is take it “day by day.”
For four years, he has watched his wife, Raffi Dobles, suffer. She has Stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma, a common type of skin cancer, but what makes Dobles’ diagnosis rare is that it was first found on her vulva, Lesslie explained.
And then it spread. It spread to her lymph nodes, and today, she has multiple inoperable tumors that make it painful for her even to sit, let alone walk, or work out like she used to.
- “Riding in the car, she has to lay the seats all the way back. She can hardly walk. It’s horrible,” Lesslie, a former CrossFit affiliate owner, said. “At this point, I don’t think any doctor can really tell us [the prognosis, but] it’s serious…It’s Stage 4. You don’t come back to Stage 2.”
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Lesslie started his CrossFit journey at CrossFit Los Angeles in 2009 and has coached at multiple gyms through the years. He has 7- and 8-year-old daughters with Dobles.
- “There have been some really dark days. She has been in a lot of pain for a long time. There have been many nights where I thought it was going to break her, and we’re talking about a woman who has had two babies with no drugs…I’m praying to just try to get through the night.”
The dark days only became more stressful when Lasslie was laid off from his job last September. Since then, he has been out of work and has been staying at home to look after Dobles and his two young children. All the while, the medical bills are piling up.
And they’re about to pile even higher, as Lesslie and Dobles, and their two kids, are about to move to Scottsdale, AZ, for 14 weeks so Dobles can undergo cancer treatment with a hefty price tag.
- “We’re looking at at least $8,000 every Monday morning to get treated for that week,” Lesslie said, adding that they’re expecting to have to pay $200,000 in the next three months.
Controlling What He Can
It would be easy for Lesslie to all but give up, but he’s choosing to control what he can and put his faith in the rest.
- “Financially, I don’t have an answer….It’s out of the realm of something I can just pay for…[But what I can do] is show up for my family every day. I can do that,” he said. “I promise I’ll show up for my family every single day…I get dressed up like I’m going to work every day and I don’t even have a job. I’m busier now every day than I ever was when I worked.”
He realizes he has no other choice.
- “My wife is battling every day. She’s in pain every day, so I know that my job is to be the one that is steady and positive, and just hold to that,” he said.
And when it all feels like too much to bear, Lesslie goes to the gym and lifts weights.
- “My life is exhausting in every realm, so if I can just hold onto the barbell, even three days a week…that’s a win,” he said. “I don’t know during the day if I can carry the load of my life, but I know when I go to the gym I can lift the barbell. And if I can do that, and that helps get all of the anger out, so when I come home to my family, I can move with grace,” he added.
And when he comes home from the gym, he feels more hopeful. Hopeful he and his family will get through it, and hopeful his girls will see their mother healthy again.
- “We just have hope, and we won’t let go of it…This game isn’t over. We will fight every single day,” he said. “This is not the end. It’s a season in our life.”
You can donate to Dobles’ cancer treatments here or support the cause by purchasing Strong as a Mother apparel.
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Featured image: Danny Lesslie
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