Man Fighting Cancer Marries the Love of His Life Before Surgery on Brain Tumor: 'A Perfect Day'
Julio Aguilar Will and Lindsay Law
Mere weeks before his wedding day last fall, Florida man Will Law's doctor told him the unthinkable: he had an aggressive brain tumor.
Will, 39, worried not just about his health, but also whether an imminent surgery might impact his memories of the couple's big day. Still, his surgeon said Will and his then-fiancée Lindsay Hodgdon, of St. Petersburg, Florida, should move forward with the Nov. 5 nuptials before surgery on Nov. 17.
When Will emerged from the operation, he was thrilled that his fear hadn't become reality.
"It was a perfect day," Law says of their wedding, grateful that those happy moments are still fresh in his mind.
Will met Lindsay when the two were bartenders at a brewery in 2017. Hours after meeting, they stayed up all night talking to each other, learning the ins and outs of their lives. They've been together every day since.
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"She's just the best," says Will, who now works in sales for Coppertail Brewing Company.
Julio Aguilar Lindsay and Will Law
"We knew we were meant to meet each other," says Lindsay, 30, who is studying to become a vet tech.
She loves Will's outgoing personality and the way he connects to people.
"He has the ability to walk into a room full of strangers and make everybody feel like he has a friend," she says.
That confidence led to a grand proposal in August 2021. During a Tampa Bay Rays-Boston Red Sox game, Will got down on one knee and popped the question at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.
"He proposed in front of all our family and friends," she says. "I was excited, nervous and a bundle of emotions, really."
Julio Aguilar Will and Lindsay Law's big engagement moment with friends and family
A year later, in August 2022, Will noticed that he was having trouble gripping objects and writing with his left hand, his dominant hand.
"That concerned me," Lindsay says.
Then the problem began to impact his golfing. One day, Will lost his grip and threw his driver about 30 feet.
"I almost hit another golf cart with that club," he recalls. "I was like, 'This is dangerous.'"
At first Will thought maybe he slept wrong or pinched a nerve. He tried CBD cream, which he says had provided some pain relief in the past, and cross training on the elliptical machine.
"My left arm was just flapping away like a chicken wing," he says.
His fiancée insisted that he go to the doctor, who ordered an MRI. After a car accident in 2015, doctors had noticed a small mass in Will's brain. But the new MRI showed it had grown — a lot.
Meeting with the neurosurgeon in October, just weeks before their wedding day, Lindsay had a big question: "Should we postpone the wedding?"
Julio Aguilar Lindsay and Will Law
"When we first heard 'brain tumor,' I was ready to put the wedding on hold," Lindsay says. "I was like, 'This has to be dealt with ASAP.'"
But at his doctor's urging, the couple put their concerns on hold and married in front of about 20 friends and family at sunset on the beach in St. Augustine.
"I told him that in this next journey, he's not going to be alone," Lindsay says. "He has me now."
They delayed their plans to honeymoon in Asheville, North Carolina, and on the Monday after the wedding, Will drove straight to the hospital for pre-op blood work.
The Nov. 17 operation took five hours, during which Will was awake the whole time. Lindsay remembers the surgeon telling her that Will had suffered a seizure during the surgery, and, as a result, the medical team wasn't as "as aggressive as they necessarily wanted to be."
Will would need further treatment, Lindsay learned, but she was just glad he was alive.
"I was so happy to see him sitting there looking back at me," she says.
WILL LAW Will Law's tumor scans
Will had a second surgery on Nov. 22 to remove a blood clot. The tumor was biopsied and Will was diagnosed with stage 3 astrocytoma, a cancer that is known to occur in the brain or spinal cord, according to the Mayo Clinic.
The aggressive tumor had grown quickly over the years, Will says: "We had gone from a dime, to a quarter, to a golf ball, to tennis ball-size before surgery."
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But the newlyweds were determined to treat it. "I was ready to face it head on," Lindsay says.
Will was released from a rehabilitation program on Dec. 10 and is undergoing a series of 33 radiation treatments — one each day for nearly seven weeks. He may need chemotherapy in the future, but for now, he's back home with Lindsay and Newton, the couple's beloved Brussels Griffon who was Will's best man the wedding.
WILL LAW Will and Lindsay Law
Amid their battle against cancer, Lindsay says the couple has become more patient, kind and supportive. The typical small arguments that pop up in relationships are a thing of the past.
Meanwhile, Will says he's incredibly thankful for his attentive wife, who never left his bedside in the hospital.
"She spent the same amount of time in the hospital as I have. There's something to that," Will says. "I want to do everything I can just to keep her happy."
"For somebody to stick around through all that and deal with this fun box of things..." he adds as tears build up. "I've never met somebody I would do that for as well."
He's also grateful for medical staff and everyone who has contributed to the couple's GoFundMe to help them cover medical bills and expenses.
"I'm shook," he says. "I've got to give back."
