JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. -- Master Sgt. Thomas Rapp re-enlisted for another five years a month ago; something he wasn’t sure he would be able to do this time last year.
Rapp, 305th Maintenance Squadron production superintendent, was diagnosed with stage three testicular cancer on Sept. 14, 2015. Upon further scans, doctors found 13 different tumors in his lymph nodes and one on his lung.
He joined the Air Force in 2002 and went to work on RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft as a crew chief at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. Today, he works in the maintenance back shop for both the C-17 Globemaster III and KC-10 Extender.
At that time of his diagnosis, Rapp was stationed at Kadena Air Base, Japan. Because the base didn’t have the necessary facilities to provide him the care he needed, he received a new assignment where proper care would be available.
“When the doctor first diagnosed me, he was very reassuring that it is a very curable type of cancer, but I’d have to go through treatment,” Rapp said.
“I pushed to come here to New Jersey (for my treatment); it’s my home of record, my family lives about an hour from base,” Rapp continued. “It worked out perfectly that they had my career field here.”
While receiving chemotherapy five days a week for four months, Rapp, his wife and their daughter lived at his parents’ house so they would be able to help with his daughter, as well as take him to and from doctor appointments.
He went through chemo from November 2015 to the beginning of February this year. About a month later, Rapp had surgery to remove about 200 of his lymph nodes.
“I learned how much you can actually overcome; chemo was hard, it really was,” Rapp said. “Every day, I felt like I was dying. It was a struggle every day to get up, to know I had to go sit in chemo for eight hours. Forcing myself to get up and do that was hard.
“I spent about 10 days in the hospital and about 30 recouping, then started coming back to work,” he added.
Going through chemo, Rapp realized how much he enjoys his job.
“From the time I was diagnosed, almost everybody told me, ‘Well, you’re probably going to have to separate, they’re going to medically retire you.’ But that just made me determined,” he said. “I wasn’t ready to stop doing this.
“A month after my surgery, I forced myself to come back to work; I was assigned to the medical squadron, but I’m maintenance, and I wanted to get back to what I do,” he said. “The whole situation made me realize how much I love doing my job and how much I wanted to stay in the Air Force.”
Rapp said one of the hardest parts of going through the treatment was not being able to play with his daughter like he did before.
“My daughter is very young, she just turned 3, but she did know something was wrong,” Rapp said. “My wife told her after one of my surgeries, ‘You have to be careful. Daddy has a booboo; you can’t be rough or sit on his lap.’ I wasn’t allowed to pick her up.
“After chemo, she would want to play, but I just couldn’t do it,” he said. “I think that was just as hard for her as it was for me.”
The surgery left Rapp with a scar from his chest to his groin.
“She knows I am getting better and even likes to show people daddy’s ‘booboo,’” he said.
On March 2, Rapp found out he was in remission, but he still sees his doctors regularly.
“I still have blood drawn monthly to test for tumor markers, as well as injections to prevent blood clots in a surgically implanted catheter in my chest until that is taken out in about a year,” he said.
Every three months for the first year he goes to have PET (positron emission tomography) scans done, after that it will be every six months, then a year for the rest of his life.
Rapp still hopes to make chief and receive a full retirement.
“I just hit my 14 year mark, and I have master on already, so I think I’m well ahead of the curve for where I’m at,” he said. “That is part of the reason I didn’t want to get out and do a medical retirement.
“There are still things in my career I haven’t accomplished. I really would like to make chief someday,” he said. “That is still a goal I have for myself and I am determined to complete it.”