“Hockey Fights Cancer” – It’s personal for me.

Image from NHL.com.

On October 8, 2010 cancer took my father’s life.  He had Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL).

A little over two years before his death he was out riding his ATV on there trails where we hunt.  On a relatively steep hill, he was negotiating his way over a branch when his ATV rolled over.  It landed on him and caused some pain in his ribs.  He didn’t think much of it.  He wasn’t having any trouble breathing or any indications of a fracture.  But it did hurt.  It hurt him a lot, but he was a tough guy.  Three days later when the pain wasn’t any better he finally decided to go see a doctor.  They didn’t find any fractures, but they did run some blood work.  That blood work showed an elevated white cell count.  In fact it was extremely high.  The initial diagnosis was lymphoma.  The prognosis was good.  They had caught it early thanks to his ATV accident.  Some mild chemotherapy should take care of it.

My father was a pharmacist at the Chambersburg Hospital.  One of his assignments there was to work in the cancer center, so he had personal relationships with the doctors and nurses in that unit.  At the cancer center his job was the mix the concoctions of toxic medicines that would become chemotherapy treatments.  As you might imagine creating those treatments involves precise work and measurements.  When the hospital asked him to do the job he came to me.  He wasn’t sure if he could do it.  He knew that if he got anything wrong it could literally kill one of the patients.  He didn’t know if he was able to accept that kind of responsibility.  I wasn’t sure why he was asking me about it.  He was my dad.  I was supposed to come to him with that kind of stuff.  I remember telling him that I thought he was the perfect person for the job.  His boss must have thought so too or he wouldn’t have asked him to do it.  Little did we know that several years later he would be on the receiving end of those drugs that he used to mix.  In fact when it was early in his treatment he would mix his own chemo treatment, have it administered to him and then go back to work.  He was able to do that the first couple rounds and that’s the kind of work ethic that he had.  That is what made him good at his job.

I could go on and on with more stories and details about my father.  It would be page after page and that would only cover the last couple years of his life.  In the end his cancer morphed into CLL.  Even after that there was another mutation of the cancer which eventually cost him his life.  During his last hospital stay his Oncologist came to talk to him and us.  His last chemotherapy treatment was a new drug that had just been released.  He was a human guinea pig testing the protocol.  His body did not respond to it and there was nothing more that could be done.  His Oncologist was also his friend and colleague at the hospital.  This wasn’t just another patient that he was talking to.  After delivering the news, he went out into the hall and cried.  Two days later we took my father home where he was under hospice care until he died.  I was there along with other family during those last few weeks.  I held him in my arms as he took his final breaths in this world.  We were able to tell each other good bye several times and for that I will be eternally grateful.  Very few people get that opportunity.

Cancer sucks.  But the NHL is doing a huge part to help find a cure.  “Hockey Fights Cancer” is an ongoing program to help find a cure.  The NHL has teamed up with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society® (LLS) to do just that.

• An estimated 1,012,533 people in the United States are living with, or are in remission from, leukemia, Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma or myeloma.
• Approximately every four minutes, someone new is diagnosed with blood cancer.
• Approximately every 10 minutes, someone dies.

Please consider making a donation or buying one of the special “Hockey Fights Cancer” products from the NHL store.  U.S. residents can text HFC to 90999 to make a $5 U.S. donation to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  You can also go to the “Hockey Fights Cancer” page and click the link to donate online.