LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – To hear ESPN Radio host and college basketball analyst Bob Valvano talk about his remarkable remission news less than four months after a Stage 4 Leukemia diagnosis is to understand that his fight against cancer is not limited to his own fight.
And to hear the excitement in his voice leads you to believe that perhaps he has more years on this earth for a good reason.
The "V" in the V Foundation for cancer research represents his family name, and the memory of his older brother, Jim, whose, "Never give up!" speech still inspires those who suffer from the disease that eventually took his life.
Through his show on ESPN Radio in Louisville and in appearances around the country, Bob Valvano has raised thousands of dollars for cancer research. The results of that work, and that giving on the part of people all over the city and country, has hit home for him over the past several months.
"I'm in remission!" he told listeners of The V Show on Wednesday. "Incredible, incredible, incredible day."
But beyond that, he told them, "I'll tell you this over and over, because it's amazing to me -- this is what your money did. Your money did this, and you have to know that. This is what the money does. People wrote me, 'God is good. Power of prayer.' I'm a faithful person. I believe that. But my mother used to say God helps those who help themselves, and God has blessed some of us with a scientific mind who can make a difference and have the desire and the will to do it. And these people did."
Valvano has been in a good bit of pain for most of the past two years. He has back issues. But it wasn't until last spring that the 64-year-old knew about the leukemia, and he feared the worst. Who wouldn't? He even asked his doctors about the worst-case scenario, what death from leukemia would look and feel like. He didn't want to be unprepared.
But he also asked about best-case scenarios. And Dr. Khuda Khan, medical oncology specialist at the Norton Cancer Institute in Louisville, told him to forget everything he ever knew about cancer in general, and leukemia in particular.
Valvano had gotten a rough scouting report from those whose loved ones had struggled with leukemia. He'd heard about painful bone marrow transplants and difficult chemotherapy. Kahn told him that fighting many cancers has become a different ballgame in the past five years.
"Whatever your concepts of cancer were, block them out of your mind now, because it is different than it was 10 years ago, 5 years ago, and you need to know that," Valvano told his radio audience. "I get on here a lot and we're talking about the V Foundation raising money for research, and we're talking about our local initiative here, the Kentuckiana Friends of V, and I hope it may spur some of you who want to help us more, because quite honestly, the research saves people's lives, and I'm living proof of that."
Leukemia is cancer that attacks the blood and can spread quickly to the lymph nodes and elsewhere. Valvano, at Stage 4, had tumors in his lymph nodes, the largest, he said, was about 14 centimeters. He began chemotherapy with his usual good humor. He named his IV stand "Rollie" and told his listeners about it. But the first session was difficult.
"I threw up 14 times in the first half hour," he said.
But doctors adjusted the medication, and he has had few problems with nausea since. Underscoring the rate of research, Valvano said his IV medication wasn't available until 2016, and the oral medication he has taken since then only went on the market in 2018.
"The chemo drugs don't interact with you the way the old ones used to," he said. "They told me, 'You're probably not going to lose your hair.' . . . Chemotherapy, for those who know about cancer, used to just go in and destroy cells. It was a little morbid, macabre game -- let's see if we can kill more cancer cells than healthy cells. We might. We might not. We might kill the guy, but we've got to take the chance. And that's what we did. You just scattershot in there and hope the guy was strong enough to get through it. Now for starters, the chemotherapy itself is more targeted, so that's a big difference, and the second set of medication is a pill. . . . Researchers found that there's a protein that attaches to these cancer cells, and what this pill does is latch onto the protein, and to put it in a wise-guy kind of way, convinces the (cancer) cells to give themselves up. It reprograms the cell to go back to the way it should be, and which is to destroy itself, and doesn't touch the healthy cells. . . . When we say that the money that's going to research is literally saving people's lives and they're making significant strides every month and week. These two drugs saved my life."
Valvano said he got written confirmation of his remission this past Sunday. On Monday, he Tweeted out the news.
"I Tweeted out about being in remission Monday night, and I'm sitting there watching SportsCenter and Steve Levy is anchoring it. And I get a response (from Levy) on the phone that says, "Yes!" And I'm like, did he send this during the commercial break?" Valvano said. "The time stamp was during the show. That meant a lot to me that it meant enough to people that in the middle of their day that they took time to mention it and say something about it."
Valvano talked a great deal publicly about his fight, which isn't an easy thing to do in the midst of it. He had some difficult days. His voice was affected, and he still hasn't returned to a full radio schedule. He'll be back on five-days-a-week soon. But the message he wanted to share was one of hope.
"If you have cancer, don't lose hope," he said. "And if you have a loved one with cancer, don't lose hope. You have people working for you. . . . I never went to the oncologist without somebody with me, without (wife) Darlene or (sons) Nick or Jamie or some combination of the three. But ultimately, you still do face it alone. But at moments like that, it's nice to know that there are people working their brains out on this, people you don't even know. And they really are. . . . It's why I wanted to be so open about all this, so people would know.
"Stress for me is best dealt with for me by being silly. And I wanted people looking at me from the outside to see me handling things in a positive way. But there were a lot of lonely days and painful days, and I don't want this to sound melodramatic because I was not suicidal, but there were days when I would say to myself, and unfortunately my family had to hear it, 'This is no life.' I was existing, but it was no life. There were days I couldn't get out of the chair. I couldn't go to the mailbox. It was agonizing. . . . So to get the report Sunday and Monday and get out of bed and be able to walk out of the room and to the car and start your day . . . it's a wonderful, wonderful day."
Valvano already is throwing himself back into his V Foundation fundraising efforts, perhaps with newfound passion. His Friends of V Golfing Against Cancer Event is August 16, and he might well be able not only to take a more active role, but to take a swing or two.
With his cancer remission and other issues also having been healed, he says he's pain free for the first time in a long time.
"I feel like a guy whose just been let out of prison," he said. "It's a little unsettling. I'm a little lost. . . . The doctor said, 'Go live your life.' It's been so long since I've made those decisions. . . . I'm grateful for all the support, all the notes, all the prayers, people I don't even know saying such wonderfully nice, kind things. I wouldn't recommend it, but if you have to go through it, this is about as well as it could have gone, I would think. I'm very grateful to be where we are."
To support the Kentuckiana Friends of V, visit the website by clicking here.
Copyright 2021 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
