Texans DE Returns to Field After Cancer Battle: ‘God’s On My Side’

Published: November 20, 2024

Texans DE Returns to Field After Cancer Battle: ‘God’s On My Side’

By Movieguide® Contributor

Almost a year ago, Houston Texans defensive end Dylan Horton got a call that would change his life.

“I remember getting the call,” he told GOOD MORNING AMERICA. “I’m trying to understand everything the information he was saying and I wanted to make sure my parents were on the call, too…So we all took the information in and at the same time together.”

Horton was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin Lymphoma, “a type of cancer that affects the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is part of the body’s germ-fighting and disease-fighting immune system. Hodgkin lymphoma begins when healthy cells in the lymphatic system change and grow out of control,” the Mayo Clinic wrote.

The news terrified Horton, but his faith in God gave him the strength he needed to fight.

“I feel like [it] was a lot of emotions initially,” Horton said. “I feel like it was a common fear just to be kind of nervous. But I just know that God’s on my side, He’s not going to bring me to a situation where He doesn’t think I’m prepared to handle.”

After getting the news, the athlete shifted his focus from football to healing.

“My first goal was just getting back healthy,” the defensive end explained. “And then understanding that I worked hard just to get to the NFL. It’s going to be hard to stay in the NFL regardless of what I was going through. And so now I’m going through this.”

In March, Horton announced that “through God’s grace” he was in remission. He returned to practice last month.

When Horton took the field for the first time since his diagnosis, he took a moment to take it all in.

“Going out in the field, hearing all the other fans cheering, it just kind of gave me goosebumps,” he said.

“The way he handled it and the mindset with which he handled it, he always still attacked it with a smile, he attacked it with a great attitude every single day,” head coach DeMeco Ryans said of Horton. “Everything he went through, I can’t say Dylan had a bad day because he never showed it and that is just proof to everyone that no matter what we are going through…attacking it with the right mindset, a positive attitude really goes a long way and Dylan represents that.”