we actually refer to ourselves as team echols. >> my favorite part about being a dad is just to see their faces in the morning when i wake them up. >> we got, at any given time, 10 different things going on that we're juggling. preston eats all of his breakfast. >> announcer: rod and keisha had every day planned down to the minute. they were a well-oiled machine. but in june of 2012, something went wrong. >> i wasn't feeling, you know, up to par. you know when something's not right going on in your body, so that's what kind of triggered me to go in. >> announcer: rod scheduled a colonoscopy and received the results the following day. >> [ voice breaking ] and the doctor came in with this very serious look on his face [sighs] with some pictures and said that he found something that he's pretty sure that it's cancer. >> the first you think about is your wife and your kids and your family. you think about what would life be like for them without you. >> announcer: with his family in mind, rod had surgery immediately to remove the cancer. after the surgery, they discovered the cancer had spre