What would you do if your best friend had one year to live? That was the devastating and hopeless question that Dillon Hill had to answer when his boy Chris Betancourt was given a death sentence by doctors because of his mortifying cancer prognosis. Last month, doctors said Betancourt’s cancer cells had escalated and they said the 20-year-old only had one to two years left to live if he didn’t receive a bone marrow transplant. Instead of wallowing in sorrow, Chris decided that he wanted to literally live his best life. Dillon decided that he would leave college so that he could be at the side of his best friend every step of the way.
Chris was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia in the fifth grade. “There’s an acute version, which is just super right away, and there’s the chronic,” Betancourt said. “You can send it — with experimental chemo — into hiding, but you have to constantly keep an eye on it. Because this is experimental medication, and it can just pop back.” Chris fought back against his leukemia, but he faced a nightmare scenario in the last year when the cancer returned even stronger than ever. “Mine was a mutation they’ve never even seen before,” he said. “And, they were just like, ‘it’s definitely not good, it’s not responding to any medication.'”
On Thanksgiving morning we were able to cross 23, 45, and 53 off our list! We donated food to the homeless and ordered a 100 of an item at a fast food restaurant. We also met a fellow reddit user. We hope everyone had an amazing Thanksgiving. Video coming out soon 📹 pic.twitter.com/XCFvWqeZss
— Live For Another (@liveforanother) November 28, 2017
Chris had amazing plans mapped out for the rest of his life including becoming a police officer. “I had just started going to college, getting ready hopefully to becoming a police officer. It felt like a big kick to the stomach.” That’s when Hill decided he needed to be by his bro’s side no matter what. The 19-year-old took a leave of absence from UC Davis so that he could help Chris maximize his life. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to experience the things I want to in life,” Chris said. “I decided to drop out of college to spend time experiencing our bucket list together,” Dillon said. Hill and Betancourt created a website “My Best Friend: One List One Life” and began the quest of checking off things from Betancourt’s bucket list.
But Chris didn’t have selfish tasks on his bucket list, he wants to give back in every way possible. They donated 100 items from a fast-food place and delivered it to the homeless near their hometown in Sacramento, California. Other items on the list include meeting celebrities, falling in love, seeing Yosemite, taking an epic road trip, and demolishing a house.
You can help Chris by donating to his Patreon, you can donate to Bentancourt’s GoFundMe so he can take a road trip of a life time, or sign up for the Bone Marrow Registry that could change a person’s life.
[NYP]