Doing the Manly Thing

November 24, 2009 erikhom@aol.com Leave a comment

“Cancer is never just about the person who has it. At least it shouldn’t be. It’s about everyone around that person. Chris made a selfless decision and I love him dearly for it.” – Stefanie Spielman about her husband Chris before she lost her battle with breast cancer.

Many of you may not know who Chris Spielman is, but he was an All-American linebacker from Ohio St. and NFL All-pro. He also exemplified in my mind a great role model for all husbands out there when it comes to supporting your spouse. It isn’t just that he is a celebrity that I give him credit for being a good husband. I think he went beyond the call of duty as a co-survivor. I copied the story below by Lisa Olson

Recently his wife passed. What I really loved about this story is how he showed what co-survivorship is all about. I‘ve attached a link here, but you can also just read this story below:

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by Lisa Olson

When Chris Spielman suffered a brutal neck injury, he said overcoming it was a breeze compared to most everything his wife Stefanie had faced. When her hair started falling out, when clumps of it began landing on the floor and in their toddler’s hands, Chris decided to shave his own head, a soldier in solidarity. When it became apparent that more chemotherapy and a mastectomy — breast cancer’s evil twins — were high on Stefanie’s schedule, Chris bid a temporary farewell to the NFL, skipping an entire year so he could be with the woman he proposed to on the 18th hole of a Putt-Putt course.

None of the above should be considered exceptional behavior by husbands or partners forced to watch their loved one undergo treatment for cancer. But everything Chris did back in those gloomy days following his wife’s diagnosis was regarded as unusual and, in some parts, emasculating.

Stefanie Spielman, 42, died Thursday after a lengthy battle with breast cancer. Chris Spielman, the NFL and Ohio State star, was by her side, along with their four children, and while she deserves a thousand hosannas and a billion thanks for her work in raising millions over the years to combat the disease, it should be noted that he was quite the trailblazer.

When they met at a teen dance in their hometown of Massillon, Ohio, Chris was a high school stud who soon would be featured on the cover of a Wheaties box; his football journey continued at Ohio State, where his bone-crunching hits as an All-American linebacker became legendary. By the time Stefanie found a lump in her right breast during a routine self-exam, they had been married 10 years and he was deep into an NFL career. This was 1998, and let’s just say the world of sports was not as enlightened as it is now.

She was three months pregnant when she felt that lump, and later miscarried. Chris told her he wanted to skip his upcoming season with the Buffalo Bills so he could accompany her to doctor appointments, and hold her head when the chemo made her nauseous, and be a calming force as she underwent surgery to remove her breast. Eight stellar years with the Detroit Lions and another two with the Bills (he set a team and personal record in 1996 with 206 tackles) had given him much credibility with the football-crazed public, but how would they understand this kind of absence?

“Players just didn’t leave the game unless they were injured or retiring on their own terms,” Stefanie once told me at a fundraiser for Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong foundation. “It seemed so simple to me. Just tell the fans your wife has breast cancer. Who knows? Maybe it will have some kind of trickle-down effect. Maybe one fan will go home and say to his wife, ‘Honey, sweetheart, don’t forget to make that appointment for your mammogram.’

“Cancer is never just about the person who has it. At least it shouldn’t be. It’s about everyone around that person. Chris made a selfless decision and I love him dearly for it.”

He took the season off, shaved his head to match his wife’s beautiful bald dome and still there were the grumps in the Neanderthal section wondering why a Pro Bowl linebacker had to go and mess up their Sunday fun. When Stefanie’s treatment reached a manageable level, he returned to the NFL for the 1999 season, this time with the Cleveland Browns, but a second neck injury ended his NFL career.

“Nothing my body has gone through can begin to compare to what Stefanie deals with almost every day,” Chris once said. “She’s my hero.”

Stefanie’s plan, formed in the aftermath of her diagnosis, began on a small level, with a sign at Big Bear, the Spielman’s neighborhood grocery story, asking shoppers to please donate money to Ohio State’s James Cancer Hospital. A few thousand dollars, she said, would have made her delirious. Girl Scout troops and baseball teams and individuals and clubs from all across the community began offering their pennies, and within six months those pennies totaled $1 million.

The Stefanie Spielman Fund for Breast Cancer Research, along with the Stefanie’s Champions awards, has since raised more than $6.5 million for the cause. She survived four bouts with cancer before a fifth, and final, recurrence in the spring left her wheelchair-bound. She accompanied Chris to Ohio State’s season opener against Navy, when he was honored at halftime for his induction into the College Football Hall of Fame. Against a backdrop where Chris once played to phenomenal roars, the loudest applause, by far, came when Stefanie was introduced.

And in a cruel coincidence, on one of her last days came a report from a federal task force saying women should delay mammograms until they’re 50, 10 years later than the medical community has traditionally recommended. Not to make the Neanderthals in the balcony squeamish, but if you, the sports fan, have a mother, a sister, a wife, a girlfriend — or if you just happen to like healthy breasts — this might be a subject worth discussing at halftime. There is one tough linebacker who’d appreciate it.

“Stefanie has gone home to be with the Lord,” Chris Spielman said in a statement released by WBNS radio in Columbus, where he co-hosts a radio show. “For that, we celebrate, but with broken hearts. I want to thank everyone for their support over the last 12 years. Together, with your help, hopefully we made a difference in this fight.”

We hear all the time about athletes who’d never win plaques for Father or Husband of the Year. They fail in the complicated tango between celebrity and sports, neglecting their human responsibilities in exchange for fame and an enlarged ego. But there are many more who quietly go about their business between the lines, before returning home and acting as good citizens, good partners.

Chris and Stefanie Spielman’s story might have been one of the first public examples of an athlete doing the right — dare we say, the manly — thing. Thankfully, and in her memory, it won’t be the last.

(by Lisa Olson)

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

What’s Up? How’s Your Wife?

November 20, 2009 erikhom@aol.com 2 Comments

This is my most special place in all the world. Once a place touches you like this, the wind nevers blows so cold again. You feel for it, like it was your child.

– Moonlight Graham, Field of Dreams

Ah..what to write. When I run each night, the mind swirls with this thick soup of thoughts. Some people have writer’s block. I have writer’s neurosis. I wish you could see the list of half written blog entries that I have yet to complete. You will, but hopefully they will still be relevant. I guess tonight I will have to address some recent inquiries to my email……

Funny how I still occasionally get an email (this week I got two) which asked how my wife is and why I don’t write about cancer anymore in my blog. The short answer is that this blog was never intended to be about my wife’s cancer. It was just a continuation of my personal thoughts on life. My public memoirs if you will.

The long answer is that I can say that I feel so lucky that my wife is doing great, gets monthly shots and takes daily pills to make sure the cancer does not come back. We are just about at the one year mark of five years of Tamoxifin treatments (20% done is quite an achievement). The monthly shots leave a nice black and blue mark on my wife’s abdomen, my wife’s surgical scars are starting to fade, and occasionally we talk about her side effects, but I take my cues from my wife for the most part. She’s ready to move on. That said, we don’t forget. We don’t forget the fears, we don’t forget the worries, we don’t forget those nights without sleep, and we don’t forget the months of surgeries. Reading some of the blogs and talking to those who have just been diagnosed or who have wives reminds us of where we were and how much our lives have changed.

Breast cancer is now a large part of our lives so much so that we have to escape. No breast cancer walks or runs for me. My runs are my way of running in honor of my wife, mom, mom-in-law, cousins, aunts, and friends who have all been struck by breast cancer. Every night when I run I am reminded of our fortunate results, my wife’s strength, and those others who we have met through our ordeal. By the way, of all the above mentioned, only my mother was over 50 when first diagnosed. Yes, this is in light of the new panel study which says that women should now wait til 50 before having mammograms. It is really a shame that we are now trying to cut back on preventive medicine during a big time for research and discovery. Now is not the time to cut back when we are making so much progress.

Yes, breast cancer as a topic is all around us now and we just can’t escape it so we relish those moments when it doesn’t remotely come close to infiltrating our conversations or thoughts. It is like my friend who works with juvenile delinquents on a daily basis. He has told me that because of his job he doesn’t want to have children of his own. This week I met with a gentleman who has been waiting a month and his wife’s surgery is right after Thanksgiving. I had met him a couple times, but this week he just broke down. His fears and concerns finally overwhelmed his facade. His worries about his wife, his kids, the mounting medical bills, and all the uncertainty surrounding the outcomes finally came to a head. It just took me back a year and I relived it all in one hour. That feeling of hopelessness hit me like a ton of bricks. I broke down with this man I barely knew. I couldn’t tell him things would be alright as I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to hear either. I wanted a path. I wanted a path out of the mess. All I could tell him was to bury himself into caring for his wife. Focus on the task at hand.

That night I ran a long run. Couple that encounter with an incident earlier in the morning where I had a woman faint in the elevator bank in my office bulding. It turns out she was having a heart attack. All she kept saying was “my babies, my babies” . Her predicament had me distracted the rest of the day until I had my conversation with that breast cancer husband. Both incidences had me reeling. They reminded me of how fragile life is. All I wanted that night was to be alone with my thoughts so I could just make sense of it all.

Well I hope that explains it all. Thankful this Thanksgiving? Yep I sure will be. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Save Us San Francisco

November 13, 2009 erikhom@aol.com 1 Comment

Cause when I look to the sky something tells me you’re here with me
And you make everything alright
And when I feel like I’m lost something tells me you’re here with me
And I can always find my way when you are here

– Pat Monahan, Train

I was at a concert recently where the group, Train, which was formed in San Francisco, played from their new album, Save Me San Francisco. I thought it an interesting title given that they have to play in about 50 other cities on their tour and I doubt they would tell people how, “Chicago is great, but we’re here to tell you about San Francisco”.

I admit that I have had a lifelong love affair with San Francisco. Fortunate to have been born here and even more fortunate to still work and have a family here, I try not to take it for granted. Even my wife who is from the East Coast finally has broken down and said this is the perfect place to have settled. “It has soul. It has character, ” she once told me. She’s right. But it isn’t just the City. It’s the people too.

Now don’t get me wrong. Having spent years working in Chicago and New York and various other cities, I love those cities for many of their merits as well. And the people there are so real and loveable in their own way and sometimes even more loveable than San Francisco. I’m sure everyone feels that way about where they are from, so excuse me while I gloat. After all, Conde Nast Traveler’s reader poll did say that San Francisco is the best place in America, so they can’t be that wrong, could they?

Yes San Francisco has it’s Golden Gate, it’s nearby Napa wine country, and the beautiful Pacific coastline, but like every beautiful painting or landscape, the object of your desire has to have depth which keeps you coming back for more. It has to engage you, frustrate you, encourage you, entertain you, and most of all, leave you breathless in amazement as you look back over your shoulder as to what you have been through. For me, San Francisco has always been “all points pointing west” whenever I look for that solution.

Maybe there really is something magical about San Francisco. For my whole life I’ve known people who have moved to this city I call home. They come here to find themselves, to discover acceptance for who they are, or just to begin again. In the 1800s there was the Gold Rush, in the 1960s it was the hippies and free love. Today it is still for the technology as well as an alternative style of living.

As a native, I’m not looking for much of the new so much that I am looking to have more of the same and in some way to revisit those things which I’ve enjoyed so much about the past, and some recent small events have gotten me to thinking about those healing powers of the City once called by Herb Caen, Baghdad by the Bay. They might not mean anything individually, but together in reflection they do.

A few weeks back on the golf course in the 56th Northern California Family Golf Championships with my son. The tournament is one that I started playing with my own dad when I was in high school. It was my way of getting closer to my dad doing something he enjoyed. We played many times and it wasn’t until my early 20s that we finally took home a trophy for our flight. I still remember that hug and that smile and laugh my dad gave me when he won, “We did it,” he exclaimed. It was an aw-shucks kind of smile, but it wasn’t until now that I realized he really did enjoy it as much as I did.

With the shoes reversed some 20 years later, I became overwhelmed with a sense of deja vu. I kept looking at my son and remembering all the great times I had in this tournament with his grandfather. Back then I did it to be closer with my dad and I always felt it was for me. But as we advanced each round in this tournament this year I realized how much I was getting out of this and just relished the moments spent with my son to just talk about life, learning to relax, and to tell him no matter what happened, how proud I am of him. It wasn’t just me. Many of the other teams were multi-generation San Franciscans who had played the tournament as youngsters and now were playing with their own children. Such a cool event and yet, such a personal and life building experience.

Soccer Saturdays was not something I had growing up. Anyone who has children these days knows what it means to be a soccer parent. You spend your days as a chauffeur and snack coordinator. In San Francisco it has been a chance for me to see old high school friends, cousins and classmates who have children the same age. Having the time to talk about old times and fins out about old friends has become a weekly ritual. It just makes you realize how small this City is.

Now getting back to the Train concert, I took my wife and my best friend from high school to see Train at the reknowned Fillmore concert hall (http://www.thefillmore.com), one of those temples of music that has so much hisotry in it (more on this later). Train inspired this posting as they were formed in San Francisco, disbanded for solo careers and just recently moved back to San Francisco to start recording together. They told the story of how although none of them were originally from the area, they felt as though the City had saved them twice. First by bringing them together and then, bringing them back together again. They went through a myriad of songs all about California and San Francisco that left the 3 of us so happy that we went and so proud of the city we call home.

A few weeks later I got a message that one of my childhood elementary school classmates had passed away. We weren’t close, but I saw the grieving that many of those classmates felt. Although our friend died early and a rough life was pretty much the cause of death, that did not matter to us. The outpouring of grief and emotion turned into a beautiful private vigil at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach at sunset. Suddenly the 76 classmates were now back in touch some 30 years later, brought together by the death of one of our own. It makes me wonder if our friend realized how much she was loved and will be missed by so many and by those who she might not have seen in so long. My wife thought it very interesting and touching that our community was that tight. I reminded her and our children ( they go to the same school my brothers and sister and I went to) that history repeats itself and that some day our children might be out there grieving for one of their classmates.

In getting our classmates together I even had the opportunity to go out to a restaurant owned by one of our firends. He even comped us a great meal (http://www.betelnutrestaurant.com). Afterwards we went to the Fillmore to see a small artist named Mat Kearney. It turns out that Mat’s parents have a lot of history in San Francisco and were in attendance. They were flower children who met in San Francisco in the ’50s while working in a diner as a waitress and a chef. Although they hade very little money they were able to see a few concerts at the Fillmore and claimed their favorites were Jimmy Hendrix and Bob Dylan. Well now they have to add their son to that list which has brought their lives back to San Francisco full circle. I love little stories like that.

Yes, San Francisco has its mysterious charm and I’m sure it has healing powers for whatever it is that ails you or those around you..Los Angeles may have its Palm Trees and beautiful people, New York might have Wall St., and all the nightlife you could want, Chicago has great food and spirit, but San Francisco simply has the “it” factor that attracts and rewards those who embrace it.