NIKE CANCER TEAM TRAINING CAMP REVIEW

 

After a diagnosis for hpv throat cancer I found a cancer team. An Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist, a radiation oncologist, and a chemo-therapy oncologist, all gathered data for my best outcome.

 

That was the shared goal. I had a couple of others I shared with them, like avoiding opioid addiction and secondary infections. Modest goals by most standards.

 

Not the highest bar.

 

Testing showed bad news, then worse news, and before I knew it I was a cancer guy.

 

Once the treatment process started I had to get used to a certain loss. The whole thing felt like it was out of my hands, that there was nothing I could do but show up and hope for the best.

 

So that was my plan.

 

I interviewed a chemo-therapy clinic, heard the pitch, toured the facility, and set a start date. I also had an appointment with OHSU Knight Cancer Institute – Tualatin for a second opinion. My thought was one chemo place was no different than another.

 

Science is science, but my wife wanted me to get a second.

 

The second opinion guy, Dr. Yee, laid out his ideas for treatment after reviewing my stats.

 

His idea matched what I’d read about approaches to the lump growing in my neck, but not the first clinic. I’d read about therapy options before I showed up and Dr. Yee was right on target. What did I really know about chemo? Nothing, except it flows into the blood stream.

 

Like the rookie cancer guy I was, my first notion was the more chemo the better. I was ready to take ten varieties of chemo, line it up. If cancer treatment called for some manning up, I was ready. And I was wrong.

 

Over the years I’d turned into a gym guy, a weight training guy. And a writer, a museum cataloguer and Collection Manager for the Oregon Historical Society. I got married, had kids, and lived the sort of life I never dreamed of, the whole sh-bang.

 

Until cancer called and I had to answer.

 

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Cancer.”

“Cancer who.”

“Like you need to ask.”

 

After I got positive cancer results and I knew I was a dead man walking.

 

Then I calmed down and realized I wasn’t ready to bow out, to say my good-byes, to shuffle off this mortal coil like a modern Hamlet. I was busy writing my blog, boomerpdx.com, reviewing screenplays I’d written. But the clock was ticking louder and louder, and my time was over at the final bell.

 

Until the interview with OHSU Knight Cancer Institute and Dr. Yee.

 

Once I was accepted into the treatment program my spirits rose up. A breath of life came over me as real as the east wind whistling through the Columbia Gorge. Suddenly I was a Nike man with a cancer team. I joined Michael Jordan and LeBron. I had Phil Knight in my corner. I had a chance, a slugger’s chance, to knock out the cancer trying to take me down.

 

Just Do It wasn’t a slogan, not an excuse to sleepwalk through treatment. Just do it meant do it right, to bring my best to get the best. Every Nike sports ad took root in my mind and lifted me out of my gloomy preconceived outcome. They changed my outlook from bleak to blinding hope, from certain defeat to a victory lap.

 

Does the mental part really matter? Ask any cancer guy’s family. Ask a cancer team.

 

I couldn’t quit on Nike, on my doctor / coaches, on my fellow chemo guys / teammates. I couldn’t throw in the towel and walk away. If a life in sports teaches one thing, it’s not to quit during the game.

 

To anyone else cancer treatment might seem like a small thing. It’s such a widespread disease where it’s hard finding anyone untouched, so what’s the big deal? ‘Get through it and get on with the rest of your life’ is the prevailing thought. But that misses the key issue.

 

Life after cancer is often life with cancer even with no cancer detected at the end of treatment. Some live under the cloud of eminent doom. That was the condition I felt before I started with the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute. If I’d gone anywhere else, that would be the condition I’d be living in today.

 

Fear and anxiety? Hello my old friends.

 

Call me nutty, but the Nike cancer team connection to my cancer treatment helped me turn the corner from knockout victim to fighter. Instead of starting out feeling like it’s early in the last round of a scheduled 12 round event, I was in the middle rounds swinging and jabbing, sticking and moving like David Ali.

 

‘Just Do It’ became my mantra. It reminded me to do better every day, and still does. The world of sports and medicine collided in my mind. Sports Medicine became more than taping ankles, it became a lifeline. My recovery is based on both sports and medicine being on my side.

 

Who is the opponent? Everyone who feels like they can’t possible carry on. Don’t make that the lasting memory you leave behind.

 

Show some resolve. Help someone on the cancer team in a small way no matter how helpless it gets. You. Can. Just do it. Do it with a song in your heart, like this one.