Chance Noble is a member of the Hella Shriners based in Garland. His alter ego, Ocho the Clown, has visited children at Scottish Rite and other Shriners hospitals across Texas. This past year, Noble has been a patient.
"Last year I got diagnosed with thyroid cancer," Noble said. "So now I have turned from... the one that delivers the smiles to the ones that are needing the smiles."
Noble said his cancer is rare and aggressive. It's spread to stage IV.
"When he was in the hospital and we were allowed, he had a line of clowns of people outside the door," John Rodriguez, a fellow Hella Shriner, said. "He has a gift...it's a God-given thing."
"When one clown is down, the other clowns gather 'round," Noble said with a gleam in his eye.
Noble said he found the Hella Shriners and clowning after his own father died of cancer in 2012.
"I have always been the Krazy Glue that I think was holding the family together," Noble said. "I was class clown when I graduated in '88 and I stayed true to my roots!"
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Noble has donated his time as Ocho the Clown, visiting young hospital patients, spreading what he calls 'miles of smiles'.
"If somebody doesn't have a smile, you might as well lend them yours," Noble said. "And in lightening their path, you're also lightening your own."
Noble's fellow Hella Shriners are trying to lighten the financial load. There's a GoFundMe campaign to help raise money for cancer treatments. Noble is going through radiation and chemotherapy now.
"When you're sitting there for hours doing chemotherapy...it's awesome to have that brightness and that love coming back to you," Noble said. "Positivity is positively the way it needs to be!"
