Ryan Carden awoke to a lump 10 years ago that threatened to take his life as a Coeur d'Alene High School junior.

Nowadays, the lumps the 27-year-old wakes up with aren't nearly as life-threatening - which says something, considering he's participating in one of the world's most dangerous sports: Bull riding.

To the average person that gets whittled down to nearly 100 pounds by cancer treatments, taking on a beast up to 20 times that size would be inconceivable.

Not Carden.

With the mentality that he defeated cancer, he believes nothing can stop him, he said.

"If I set my mind to a goal or something," Carden said, "I can definitely achieve it if I work hard enough."

It gave him the confidence to cut a big corner in the rodeo industry - going from riding calves 15 years ago to bulls from 2011 to present.

Carden hasn't found the success he's been looking for yet, but hopes that destiny will soon be in his favor, he said.

The former North Idaho College golfer and current University of Idaho student would love for it to all come together later this month at the North Idaho Fair and Rodeo, scheduled for Aug. 22-25 at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds in Coeur d'Alene.

"I've been waiting for success," said Carden, who received his first taste of it as the Cardinals' first golfer to make nationals when the team moved from club status to an NJCAA varsity sport in 2008.

Surviving the 'Big C,' as he calls it, is where some of his rodeo motivation lies, but most of it comes from another big 'C' - being a Carden.

The Carden family is well known in the rodeo arena in north-central Washington, where Ryan spent time with his father Gary, a former professional bull rider, during his childhood. His uncles were also successful, Gary said.

"I guess (riding bulls is) in his blood," said his mother, Sherri Hamley, who has begged her son to quit on numerous occasions after nearly losing him twice to cancer, she said.

But no Carden provided more of an influence than his 26-year-old cousin Sev, of Omak, Wash.

Ryan was on hand to see the peak of Sev's success in 2010, when he won the bull riding competition at The Omak Stampede.

"He was pretty pumped, so that kind of helped him decide to go with it," Sev said.

At that moment, Carden felt it his destiny to at least give it a shot, he said. After all, Sev couldn't be the only Carden of his generation to keep the name alive.

"It just seemed like a lot of excitement, excitement that I wasn't getting from golf anymore," said Carden, who had been competing in semi-professional tournaments since his career concluded at NIC.

Immediately, he knew where to go to get back in the saddle.

"Any time you have your child wanting to do that, it makes you a little nervous," Gary said. "But how do you stop (an adult)? They're gonna do it whether you like it or not."

Carden began traveling with Sev and competing in rodeos all throughout the Northwest, taking on his father as his coach.

Ryan has come along pretty good thus far, Sev said, noting significant progress over the last three years.

"He's taken some bumps and bruises and keeps coming back and wanting to do it," he said.

Bumps and bruises aren't the half of it.

The 5-foot-9, 140-pound Carden has broken an ankle and multiple ribs, been stepped on by a bull and kicked in the head, punctured a lung and needed his scalp stapled.

An additional injury may have brought the most pain, for reasons related to his cancer, he said.

Last June at the Bonner County Rodeo in Sandpoint - with his mother on hand - Carden's elbow was ripped completely out of the socket while riding a bull.

"(Seeing him get hurt) is very scary," Hamley said. "I was climbing the fence, actually; ready to take on the bull myself."

At the hospital, doctors noticed the anesthesia was having trouble putting him to sleep, she said.

"They couldn't knock him out because his body was too tolerant to the medication," Hamley said. "Even though it's been 10 years since he was diagnosed (with throat and nose cancer), they said his body still remembers the medications."

Like any tough bullrider, Carden took the realignment in stride.

Hamley, on the other hand, did not.

"I get really, really upset (when he gets hurt)," she said. "I tell him, 'It's not fair,' because of what I went through when he was sick.

"He just says he can't help it."

Riding bulls is something his mother just has to accept, Carden said.

"We've always been pretty close since cancer," he said. "But she knows that it's my decision and that's what I want to do."

Carden refuses to quit, with over a dozen rodeos planned this fall. He hopes his career in the rodeo arena lasts at least three more years, with a goal to make the PRCA circuit finals.

Perhaps most important to him, Carden and his cousin are keeping the family name alive in rodeo.

"We really like to keep the name out there good," Sev said. "We come from a long line of Cardens from rodeo so it's nice for us to have that reputation out there."

Ryan dedicates his riding to his father, he said.

"I've really looked up to and try to use him as motivation to follow his footsteps in the success he had," he said.

While Sev, who's now in his 11th year of rodeo, is the only one of the two to earn a belt buckle (for a victory) thus far, he said that what Ryan's done in life is an even bigger accomplishment.

"He's a cancer survivor; I think that's a pretty good battle to win in itself," Sev said.

"Surviving cancer gave me a whole new perspective," said Carden, who was diagnosed with throat and nose cancer in 2003. "It's given me self-confidence, belief in ones self, perseverance."