*Beau and wife, Haylee, during Christmas 2017, while he was going through chemo.*

“I know this sounds crazy, but if I could go back to the day I was diagnosed and had the choice of cancer or no cancer, I would go through all of it again to get to where I am now.” As Beau Baker approaches his 26th birthday and two years in remission from Stage 4 Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, he has a unique appreciation for life that drives him to enjoy even the smallest moments of each day while living with a bigger purpose.

To know Beau means to know a few things about him. “The most important thing about me is that I’m a Christian,” he said. “I’m also a very motivated, very passionate person. I don’t do anything halfway. I don’t want to say that I’m never satisfied, but I’m always looking for ways to do more and to be better.” Beau grew up in Keller, Texas, a suburb in the DFW metroplex, most of his time spent on baseball and football fields. The strong work ethic instilled in Beau early on carried him into adulthood with a football scholarship to Henderson State University. “I was the first person in my family to go to college, and I knew that playing ball would be my opportunity to get to school and reach other goals that I had.”

In addition to an enjoyable college experience and a couple of conference championship rings, Beau graduated from HSU in 2016 with a degree in finance and a passion for serving others. “I’ve always enjoyed working with numbers and working with money,” he said. “I’m a very detail-oriented person, and I knew that, ultimately, I wanted to be my own boss.” Perhaps most importantly, it was during his time in Arkadelphia that Beau met his future wife, Haylee. “The first time I saw Haylee, I knew that I had to go talk to her. That was about six years ago, and there has not been a day since that I haven’t talked to her.”

*Beau gives a “thumbs up” after his last chemo treatment.*

The beginning of 2017 could not have been much better. Beau was beginning a career he loves as a financial advisor, was settling into life in Texarkana, and in May he married the love of his life. “At 23 years old, a newlywed, having been an athlete my whole life and generally healthy, a cancer diagnosis was certainly not what I expected.” Beau went in for a check-up because he noticed his hearing in his left ear, which had been a lifelong issue, had gotten worse, and he kept dealing with some sinus blockage, but nothing too concerning. “My doctor told me it looked like something was growing in there and gave me some different scenarios. He had only ever seen one case, of many, where it turned out to be cancerous. I would be the second.”

*After raising $100,665 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Arkansas, Beau earned the title of Man-of -the-Year.*

In August of 2017, after further testing and a biopsy of the golf ball-sized mass behind his nasal passage, Beau was diagnosed with Stage 4 Non-Hodgkin’s Burkitt-like Lymphoma, a very aggressive type of blood cancer. Beau decided to receive treatment at UT Southwestern in Dallas to be closer to his family, and he put himself completely in the care of Dr. Prapti Patel and her team. “Probably the hardest part about all of it, other than the shock of everything, was not being able to do anything to fix it myself. I’m a problem-solver. I get it from my dad, ” Beau said. “But in this case there was nothing we could do except to completely trust in my doctor’s plan.”

That’s just what Beau did. More testing would reveal a softball-sized tumor on his spleen and multiple other masses around his neck and pelvis areas. “The first night in the hospital, I went for an MRI that was long and uncomfortable and exhausting,” Beau remembered. “I’d only slept a few hours when 12 people in white coats came into my room, asked me how I was feeling, and told me the tumors they had detected can double in size every day.”

*After receiving the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Man-of-the-Year honors, Beau is congratulated by wife, Haylee; mother, Cara; and father, Cody.*

Dr. Patel’s plan was intensive. Over the next four months, Beau would spend six total weeks receiving chemotherapy treatments. A five- to six-day hospital stay of 24-hours-a-day chemo, followed by a couple weeks at home to recover, followed by another week in the hospital, followed by … a repeating cycle. “I’ve always been a positive person,” Beau said. “I never once doubted that I could get through this. I never looked up statistics. I didn’t want to know. I only considered one outcome, and I had an amazing support system by my side.”

On Christmas of 2017, also Beau’s birthday, he was declared in remission. “Just the best Christmas, birthday, everything rolled into one gift I could ever receive,” he said. “When you hear that, you smile, you hug your doctor, and you keep moving. You get back to life and try to keep making things better.” For Beau, that meant getting back to work. “It was the day after I was diagnosed with cancer, I got a phone call and the opportunity to have my own Edward Jones office in Texarkana,” he half-laughed. “I had to tell them I didn’t know what was going to happen, and they gave me the office anyway.” After four months of not being able to work. Beau was excited to hit the ground running in 2018. “I love what I do and who I get to work with, colleagues and clients. My hope is to be able to serve this community for the next 40 years.”

The beginning of 2019 offered Beau another opportunity to serve and to give back. He was nominated for the Man-of-the-Year Award through the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Arkansas. Over a 10-week period, Beau raised over $100,000 earning the Man-of-the-Year title, and more importantly, a big check to donate to the LLS. “The LLS does such amazing and important work to raise awareness about blood cancers, to fund important research, to financially assist families that are battling. It was an honor to be able to give back in this way.”

Admittedly, Beau Baker’s cancer story has a happy ending. He knows that is not always the case, so maybe it does seem a little crazy that he would choose the same path if given the choice. “None of us know ... we never know what’s going to happen, and I realize how important it is to enjoy what I have, who I’m with. I’m just unbelievably thankful for the opportunities I’ve been blessed with.” Right now, Beau is excited about deer season, growing his business, and the idea of a growing family in the future. “More than anything, this whole experience has reaffirmed and deepened my belief that I have a purpose here. We all do. There’s a reason why we’re here.”

Feature Stories

Enjoying the Smallest Moments of Each Day