Every Day I Fight

by Stuart Scott

  “None! That’s how many!”

  Or: “Hey, Taelor, you think any of your friends’ dads could last more than a round with me?”

  Another sigh. “How old are you?” she’d ask.

  But now I was wondering if they secretly wished I had that swagger back. I wondered if there was something about seeing me lying there, hooked up to that machine, literally wounded, that was messing with them. If you’ve ever been the dad of teenage girls, you know that when a thought like that occurs to you, it’s a nonstarter to try to discuss it with them. You’ll get those one-word, monotone answers, like when you ask, “What’d you do in school today?”

  “Nothin’,” you’ll be told, in a flat, uninterested tone.

  No, this wasn’t about starting a conversation. It was about showing that I’m still me. It’s about getting up off that couch, getting back in the gym, and getting better. I started to think about what it feels like to have that bounce in your step, like you’re feeling strong. I started to will myself toward that feeling. Within a few weeks, the wound had closed. I was ready to get back in the ring. Literally.

  • • •

  LAST TIME, I WAS nervous walking back into the ESPN newsroom. This time, I dreaded it. Because I knew what waited for me there: more questions. Unending questions. And when I wasn’t at work, I’d be at the gym … where strangers would walk up and ask how I’m doing.

  I appreciated that they cared, but it sapped me. Rather than hitting Brian’s gym, I started doing P90X at home. I’d started chemo again—this time, a cocktail called FOLFIRI. I’d follow it with P90X as soon as I got home from the infusion center. P90X is an intense workout developed by Tony Horton that mixes elements of yoga, Pilates, and plyometrics with upper and lower body workouts. I’d pull out a yoga mat and my weights right in my living room, pop in a P90X DVD, and get busy. The workout is less than an hour, but there’s no rest. Your heart gets pumping right quick. After, I’d be wiped out and I’d just lie on the floor, recharging. I’d have dinner right there, watching TV—Parenthood is another favorite—and I’d treat myself to a glass of red wine.

  If I wasn’t doing P90X, I was over at Plus One Defense doing mixed martial arts. I’d pop in the mouthpiece that I’d inscribed with Taelor’s and Sydni’s initials, put on my goggles (gotta guard those eyes!), and slide on my headgear. I’d walk to the center of the gray and blue padded floor, defiant. You thought you had me down, cancer … but here I am.

  I’d spar with a handful of guys, including some local cops and Darin Reisler, the gym’s owner. We’d go at it, getting our jujitsu and Muay Thai on, the thump-thump of our punches and kicks echoing in the air. We’d work on moves, like rear naked chokeholds, triangle arm bars, and the guillotine. We’d fight in a steel cage.

  Whenever I was on that mat, going at it, I felt like a warrior … but a peaceful warrior. And I needed to feel like that, like I was fighting back—literally and figuratively. Physical hand-to-hand combat is the ultimate test. You get revealed and you reveal things about yourself: who’s stronger, who’s trained better. But MMA training is mostly about the mind and being calm and repeating what you’ve been taught. You learn the type of punishment you’ll withstand. You learn to deliver punishment in reply. When things go bad and you hurt, that’s when you have to be at your most calm. That’s when you learn that the rough patches have endings, too.

  When you have cancer, all this is the best medicine for your soul. It’s not so much about being the best fighter out there—it’s really about being out there, period. Taking blows, delivering blows, and walking away, knowing that you left every ounce of energy on the mat. There’s personal satisfaction in that—even on days you get thumped. You get it if, like me, you’re someone who was born to play sports, drawn by the competition and the jolt of physical contact.

  Within months, I watched myself transform. I’d look at myself in the mirror when I first got home from the hospital and I’d see a skinny dude with no muscle definition attached to a Wound VAC. Now, I was getting back to me. I could see the muscle mass returning. My cardio was back. I was starting to feel that old bounce in my step. I was up to 185 pounds. I was in the best shape I’d been in since minicamp with the Jets nine years earlier.

  One day, coming back from MMA training, I stopped at Starbucks for my usual protein smoothie. I’d done P90X the day before. It was unseasonably warm and the sun contributed to my good mood. I was going to go home, rest awhile, and then do P90X again—a two-workout day. I got my smoothie and didn’t so much as walk out of Starbucks as glide. I had a familiar feeling, like when I was sixteen and aware of my body while I walked, aware of my own strength. Oh, that feeling. You don’t know what it’s like to feel strong until you’ve been weak. Man, I’m ripped, I’m shredded, I told myself. I’m strong and fit … and I have cancer.

  How weird that I could feel like this and have cancer. That’s okay, I told myself. I’m fit and strong. And cancer can’t take that away from me. I got in my car and headed home. P90X was waiting for me.

  • • •

  IN AUGUST 2011, an army invaded Philadelphia. We were an army of cancer fighters, all supporting one another on the front lines. It was the Livestrong Challenge, a weekend bike race and fund-raiser. More than five thousand cyclists and nearly one thousand volunteers came together for a weekend that raised $2.8 million for the fight.

  But the thing I’ll always remember is the act of coming together. I’ve never felt such fellowship. Everywhere you turned, you saw a teammate. Ever been surrounded by people and know that everyone you look at is with you in a common cause? It’s a mind-blowing feeling.

  At the end of the weekend, I was asked to share the stage with Lance Armstrong and Doug Ulman. We were under a huge tent in Valley Forge, just outside Philly, and we told our stories. Doug told moving personal stories that showed how the funds that Livestrong raises go directly to saving lives. At one point, Doug presented the top individual and team fund-raising awards, and one went to this old-timer named Dave, whose goal had been “70-70-70”: He had just turned seventy, he had biked seventy miles, and his goal had been to raise $70,000—which he surpassed by $15,000. How cool is that?

  Honestly, I don’t remember all of what Lance, Doug, and I said. But it wasn’t about what was said. It was about being there with everyone else. It hit me harder than ever before that a roomful of cancer fighters is a powerful place. Everyone there either had cancer or loved someone who had cancer.

  I was dating a woman at the time whose aunt was battling pancreatic cancer. Her aunt and I had grown tight since we were going through chemo at the same time. The month before, she’d been in a real bad place, but she rallied enough to come to Philly from her small town in Florida with her boyfriend, an energetic Vietnam vet whose first wife had died of cancer. It was the first time they’d been around other people with cancer. Just being there was monumental for them. When you’ve been through what a cancer patient has been through, this stuff matters. Feeling like you’re part of something bigger—a movement—matters.

  It goes beyond just having a sense of strength in numbers. You can be around thousands of people and still feel alone if you don’t feel any bond. That whole weekend, there was a feeling of camaraderie in the air. We were all fighting the same thing—it’s strength in numbers, yes, but it’s strength in numbers with a shared experience. We link arms and we fight.

  Cancer’s this big, bad fifty-foot monster and you usually feel like you’re fighting this thing by yourself. I love underdogs, but it’s draining to always be David going up against Goliath. Now there were thousands of us. This is what it felt like: You might pick off a few of us here and there, cancer, but for this day, for this moment … we’re going to beat you.

  I was so moved, I left a video message for all who came—and for those that couldn’t make it—on the Livestrong website. I wore a Livestrong cycling jersey and spoke into the camera. “I just wanted to say thank you. This weekend, this family gathering, was so impo
rtant to me …” I said. “I’m battling cancer for the second time, and it’s a family effort. Twenty-eight million cancer survivors, their loved ones, people that care about them. We are not a small but a very large army, and we put our finances, our time, our space, our energy all together to try to rid the world of this ridiculously ugly, savage disease… . Because of the camaraderie and the togetherness of this entire weekend, the struggle is a lot easier. Because you always have somebody to lean on. We’re all in this together. I just want to thank Livestrong for giving me the opportunity to come share, to hopefully inspire, and to be inspired by all of you.”

  I was already working my butt off in the fight—but now I was like a wideout bursting out of the locker room onto the field during the pregame intros. I went after it. How could I not? I left Philly that weekend knowing it’s not just me. An army had my back, and I had theirs.

  I continued to take on cancer the only way I knew how: by living my life to the fullest. In May 2012, my scan was clean once again. This time, the wording was a little different: “No new evidence of disease.”

  That fit my mind-set. I wasn’t being told that there was no cancer in my body—just that there was no new evidence of cancer. That’s like telling me to keep my guard up. Unlike last time, the clean scan didn’t take me by surprise. I knew enough by now to know it wouldn’t change my approach: I’m still in the fight.

  • • •

  NOT LONG AFTER MY latest clean scan, I was hanging with my boys in a popular bar/restaurant in West Hartford Center, not far from my house. We’d get together for a bite and a drink or two over some great conversation: everything from how season two of Homeland was shaping up, to what our kids were up to, to how they were stripping Lance of his Tour de France titles.

  Two weeks in a row there, we said hello to the same group of acquaintances. Kristin was in that group: a young, beautiful woman with a kind face and an outgoing, cheery disposition. The second time we bumped into her, I asked her for her number. She gave it up, but didn’t think I’d remember it—’cause I didn’t write it down. But I had already committed it to memory. When I called her, I didn’t feel a ton of enthusiasm flowing back at me.

  For a while, we just talked on the phone. She agreed to meet me for coffee. We started seeing each other maybe once a week—what I call our “huggy phase.” We’d part company with a hug each time. I really didn’t think she was into me. I know now she was just being cautious with this older guy (I’ve got twenty years on her) whose intentions she wasn’t sure about.

  Gradually, she warmed up to me and we started dating. In some ways, we’re opposites: She’s an extrovert, and I’m introverted. But she does share my jones for working out—she could kill it in the gym.

  After a few months, though, I started to feel not right. I couldn’t pee. I’d feel like I had to go, but … nothing. Uh-oh. Here we go again? Back to the docs I went. I had to undergo something called a TURP procedure, where they put an instrument up your urethra to remove the part of the prostate that’s blocking the urine flow. Guys, you know how you dread that prostate exam at your annual checkup? Well, I’ll take ten of those in exchange for never having another catheter jammed up my manhood. When they tell you it’s not that bad, only a little discomfort? Just say to ’em: “If it’s so easy, why don’t you have it done to you at the same time? C’mon, let’s do it together!”

  The first week in December 2012, Kristin and I went to New York together. My friend Barb took me to New York–Presbyterian for my follow-up appointment while Kristin, who worked for a Hartford insurance company, got work done at the hotel. That’s when I learned that my old friend was back. There’d been a tumor on my prostate. I was going to have to start chemo again.

  Once I got back home, I remember sitting in my darkened house—alone with the Here we go again news. This time, I wasn’t shocked or numb. More … resigned. I didn’t have a conscious moment when I declared this to myself, but I was aware that my confidence had taken a hit. This is what cancer does—its relentlessness bears down on you and shakes your self-assuredness. When I was first diagnosed, like a rookie in his first turn around the big leagues, I didn’t know what I didn’t know; I was confident that I could ultimately rid my body of these rotten cells. I was all Game on. But each setback chipped away at that. Now I had to admit to myself: This was my life. Unless a plane I was on went down, this was how I’d be going out. And it might be soon, certainly sooner than I’d ever imagined.

  I couldn’t putter around the condo all night. I called Kristin, who, unknown to me, had been crying all day on her sofa. We met in West Hartford Center, in my car. We just sat there. I wanted to play her some songs. That’s not right: I played her some songs, but I wanted to play her one very specific song.

  It’s a song written and performed by my buddy Javier Colon, the winner of the first season of The Voice. It’s called “Okay, Here’s the Truth.” It’s about a husband who thinks his wife is cheating. So we sat there, Kristin and I, in a parked car on the street, both of us crying and listening.

  Okay, here’s the truth

  It’s gonna sound kind of strange

  But I took a new way home from work for a change

  It started out fine

  Till I got to Route 9

  Went an hour the wrong way before I realized

  I’m sorry I ruined all our plans

  I was hoping that you’d understand

  Standing there watching her secretly talking

  It is just about all I can bear

  Now I know why she’s been wearing

  More makeup and caring

  So much about changing her hair

  The telephone vibrates on the table again

  Another damn private call coming through

  And now she’s visibly shaken

  And I just feel like taking that phone

  Throwing it clear across the room

  She answers “hello”

  A man’s voice I don’t know

  Says “It’s time that you tell him the truth”

  Now I can’t take this no more

  Honey, I’m out the door

  No, I won’t relax

  I’ve got my suitcase all packed

  But what she said next stopped me dead in my tracks

  Okay, here’s the truth

  It’s not what you think

  The man that you heard is head of oncology

  I’m sorry I lied

  To you all of those times

  I didn’t know how to tell you

  I might not survive

  Okay, here’s the truth

  I’ve got six months to live

  I only wanted what’s best for you and the kids

  I promise I’ll fight

  With all of my might

  But if I lose this battle

  I lived a good life

  So baby just please hold my hand

  And tell me that you understand.

  We sat there for hours. I think I played her the song to let her know what I was feeling—and to let her know what she was in for, if she wanted to stick around. This is the deal. This is it. It’s constant. The hurt is constant, the worry is constant, the stank of it is constant.

  I don’t project when it comes to other people’s behavior. So I didn’t expect her to stay or expect her to run. I was ready for either. But I wanted to encourage her to run. Why? Because I love her and this is a load, man. You’re not prepared for it—whoever you are. You’re not ready for this. No one is ready for this.

  “You must not have known me too well,” Kristin, who had been a caregiver in her own family, would tell me later. Because bailing never crossed her mind. A few days later, I was supposed to start chemo. Again. Kristin was going to meet me at the infusion center. That morning, I called her.

  “I’m not going,” I said. I wasn’t up to it. Not again. Screw this. This is why I hate it when people talk about bravery and courage. Man, there have been hundreds of times I quit. Or w
anted to. This was one of them.

  “Stuart,” Kristin said, “I’m getting in my car now and I don’t have the address. You’d better text me the address, otherwise I’ll just be driving around Avon.”

  I told her she needn’t come—I could go through this alone. “Sorry,” she said, “that’s not an option. You’re not going alone. We’re in this together now.”

  I wanted her to bail. Because I really didn’t want her to start—and then quit. This wasn’t a part-time thing. You can have a hundred people tell you what it’s like to be a caregiver to somebody who has cancer and you still won’t grasp it. It’s bigger than you think.

  She was signing on to have a relationship with a single dad of two girls, twenty years her senior, who has cancer. Them’s some issues, right there. But Kristin’s all heart. She may have more heart than sense. Whether she knew it or not, there were now three of us in this relationship: Me. Her. And cancer.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  TWO DATES AND A DASH

  As 2013 moved on, Kristin spent more and more time at the condo. On days I didn’t do MMA (and sometimes even when I did), we’d either do P90X together or I’d dig out my old Rocky sound track and put on the familiar soaring sounds of “Gonna Fly Now,” and we’d both put on big leather gloves and spar right in the living room.

  That’s right, I had me a regular sparring partner now. I know I had a few pounds on her, but she’s wiry and tough. And she’s an athlete. Despite her sweet demeanor, she’d compete. She clocked me good a couple of times.

  Soon, Kristin would take a leave from her insurance job and move in. That was a big decision for us. She was adamant: “I never want you to face any appointment, any surgery, any procedure alone,” she said.

  But taking a leave from her job was a huge step. It’s what I needed, though. When you’re sitting there in your oncologist’s office, it’s hard to wrap your head around what you’re being told. But Kristin would be there with me—and she’d be taking notes. She became more of an expert on my treatment and meds than I was. I could have dived in, but it would have been overwhelming. It was a relief to just sit there and experience the emotion I was feeling as my doctor talked to me.