Justin Graham knew he was sick.
He was sluggish, his body ached and every day he grew more and more certain that he was coming down with either strep throat or mono.
Then, one afternoon in January, after going to the doctor and having no antibiotic quite do the trick to get him better, Graham - who was preparing to begin his sophomore season with the West Virginia State baseball team - went to coach Sean Loyd asking what he should do.
The two went to a clinic and got blood work done and waited to hear back to start to get to the bottom of what was going on.
They got the news they had been dreading. Graham was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.
"It was definitely a shock. I didn't know what to think when they first told me because we went into it not expecting anything like that," Graham said. "It was really hard to take. But then we just started right away trying to figure out what to do to try to get it taken care of."
Acute myeloid leukemia is a type of cancer in the blood and bone marrow. With acute types of leukemia like this one, the bone marrow cells do not mature the way they are supposed to, leading to an excess number of white blood cells.
After discovering the diagnosis and learning about what it was going to take and the types of treatments necessary to get through on the long road to recovery, Graham knew he was in for the toughest fight of his young life. The Morehead, Kentucky, native went back home to begin the long process at the University of Kentucky's Markey Cancer Center.
"It's like a long boxing match. I know I've got great people in my corner - a great family taking care of me, an amazing group of doctors that are treating me - but at the end of the day, it's about me stepping into the ring so to speak and fighting this thing as hard as I can," Graham said. "It's not a quick thing. It's a nine-round fight, but you've got to stick to it. There are going to be times where I don't feel well, but I know I can emerge victorious from this thing and be even stronger one day."
A strong community of people pulling for him and supporting him also stand in his corner. The people of his hometown who put together a GoFundMe page to help raise money for Graham and his family (the page has received more than $23,000 in donations since being set up two months ago). Friends back at West Virginia State have been by his side and shown support for him through the fight.
Graham stays in contact with his coaches and teammates and updates them on his status as much as possible. He has been flattered by the gifts and gestures he's received from his team as well as the WVSU softball team and other people from the school who have reached out to him.
The little things like that have helped Justin and his family stay strong through the tough times - admittedly humbled to realize just how many people are pulling for him and are willing to do what they can to support them throughout this process.
"It's really made us, our family and especially Justin, realize how great these communities we have around us are," Graham's father, Charles, said. "It's been stressful, but going through this and watching Justin not let this thing beat him and seeing the way that people have rallied around him has been an amazing. It's humbling to see how much everyone cares for him and for our family."
The treatment process began with chemotherapy. After the first round, Graham went into remission. After a second round to make sure everything stayed in remission, the doctors gave him some time to get his counts back up after those two rounds before they begin the toughest step of all in the process. It's also the step that could signal the beginning of the home stretch for this fight.
This week he will undergo another round of chemotherapy before preparing to have a bone marrow transplant. The transplant is a tough step in the process because it can sometimes be extremely difficult to find a complete match - especially for African American patients like Graham. A study from BeTheMatch.org, a national organization dedicated to building a database of donors for patients in need of marrow transplants, showed that in 2015, 34 percent of African Americans patients in need of a bone marrow transplant were not able to find a matched donor.
Luckily for Graham, he didn't have to look further than his own family to find someone who was a complete match. His 17-year-old sister Janae will be his donor as they head into this step of his recovery process.
"When we found out that she was a match and then also that she was willing to do it, it was just overjoying. I'm very lucky," Graham said. "I really couldn't imagine getting through this without her and the rest of my family. I know this has probably been hard on her, but she's been great and this is an amazing thing that she is doing for me."
It goes back to making Graham feel lucky and remember how loved he is. His mother Lydia has been by his side every step of the way since he's been in the hospital. Justin even jokes that Lydia could probably administer the treatments herself with as much as she's watched and observed how they are given. His dad makes the drive back and forth from Morehead to Lexington to bring what he needs and he's gotten frequent visits from his siblings, including his half-brother Phillip Hodge who has been on several flights from his home in North Carolina to see him.
Having that lifeline there with him through it all, seeing the people who have helped make him who he has become up to this point in his life, that's the thing that has continued to push him. And as he, hopefully, begins to turn the corner toward his eventual goal of beating the disease, they are going to continue to be the ones pushing him in that direction.
"Knowing I have all these people who are caring for me, praying for me and pulling for me, there's no way I'm not going to fight," he said. "You see that much support and it makes you want to fight that much harder and beat this thing and overcome it.
"That's my goal right now, and that's what I'm going to do."
Contact Michael Carvelli at 304-348-4810 or michael.carvelli@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @carvelli3.