MT. JULIET, Tenn. (WTVF) — For Corban Young, the dream was crystal clear. "He's wanted to go to college since he was like nine years old," said his mom, Audrey Schrock.
But last year, it was right after a campus tour when things took a turn. "I thought it was just a cold and then I thought it was a sinus infection," said Corban.
On St. Patrick's Day, he went to the emergency room and learned his diagnosis.
"So I had leukemia, specifically acute myeloid leukemia," said Corban. "It’s one of the two major types of leukemia."
Audrey said, "when he was first diagnosed everybody was saying 'how do you feel? What are you thinking? What's going through your mind?' And I said 'I'm picturing moving him into his dorm room' because I can't go anywhere else."
While most teens spent summer by the pool, Corban went through chemo at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt.
"There was one complication in July where he got really, really ill and ended up back in the ICU for ten days," said Audrey. "It was kind of touch and go. That was really really hard."
Through it all he did homeschooling and applied for colleges.
"I wasn’t sure it was going to happen," said Corban. "Obviously you could never be 100% with cancer."
Finally, his cancer went into remission and Corban was cleared to return to Green Hill High School. A few weeks ago he walked across the stage at graduation, donning an orange ribbon symbolic of leukemia.
"I can’t believe I made it," said Corban. "I can’t believe I actually did it."
He'll be attending Western Kentucky University this fall on a scholarship. His mom Audrey looks forward to the moment she now gets to move him into his dorm room.
Audrey said, "so it's gonna be like I'm gonna be so happy, but then it's like my baby's moving out, right?"
As he looks back on the last year of his life, Corban's message to others is simple. "To keep going. To keep pushing," he said. "No matter how hard the situation is gonna be, it’s better to take a small step forward than to take steps backwards."
