INDIANAPOLIS—On Thursday afternoon, hundreds of people are buzzing inside the Indiana Convention Center for the opening of the Royal Rumble Superstore.
“Wallets are going to be opened today,” said Shayne Jensen, shopping on Thursday.
Jensen is here with her husband Blake Desira, a big time WWE fan.
“Huge, huge,” said Desira.
“I say I was Stockholm syndromed, forced to enjoy it,” joked Jensen.
Fans from far and wide are in Indianapolis this weekend, but Desira and Jensen might take the title for traveling all the way from Western Australia.
“We looked it up and the furthest airport from here is Perth airport,” said Jensen.
Right now, they’re on a journey of saying “yes” to life.
“Life’s too short, life’s too fragile,” said Jensen.
“I think it’s just that when you go through so much with health you realize that there’s more things in life that are important,” said Desira.
Desire has had his challenges with this health, he’s beat cancer three times now. He was first diagnosed at the age of 13.
“And when I was 28 I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer,” said Desira.
This past at October was the third diagnosis, Hodgkins Lymphoma.
“It was more of an inconvenience that’s how I looked at it,” said Desira.
But from the very beginning, it was WWE that helped him through the hard times.
“John Cena’s first match with Kurt Engel on Smackdown was around the first time that I had my leukemia when I was 13, and just that whole match I was like I’m hooked and I’ve watched ever since for the last 20 years,” aid Desira.
Through treatment, he’s watched matches in real-time and of course the reruns. He also had a themed birthday party for his 30th titled Blakemania 30.
“It's been really hard to connect to each other when he’s not been well, and it’s just been one thing that's easy to turn on. We both enjoy it, and we can talk about it. Forget everything else,” said Jensen.
Now their escape has brought them to Indy for their first Royal Rumble and their first “life’s too short moment.”
“I was diagnosed on the fourth of October and on the sixteenth of October we had flights and accommodations booked,” said Desira.
“I think we’ve been lucky through this to learn a lot of lessons that people don’t get to learn till they're much older,” said Jensen.
