I wish to meet Russell Wilson
Coby
17
cancer
Wish Alumni Then & Now Feature - Coby
Wish Alumni Coby today.
My summers in high school can be summed up as splitting time between varsity football practice and baseball workouts, refereeing youth football, and allocating the rest to time relaxing with friends by a body of water. It was a privileged life, and I was grateful. However, the summer before senior year was a bit different. I normally could go from football, to the pool, to a baseball scrimmage and maybe even go hang out with friends after, no problem. This year I was falling asleep with the shower running, taking naps that lasted all day, coughing to the point of vomiting, and receiving comments from others such as “You aren’t yourself”. Truthfully, I am still not sure to this day I ever let myself accept something was wrong, simply kept rationalizing that everything is fine and “toughing it out” was the solution for this phase of feeling miserable with every waking second. As strong as the front of seeming okay was, rationalization reconciled with reason and I agreed with my parents to entertain a quick visit at a minute clinic. My life changed forever that night. A routine X-ray for a kid with no history of hospitalizations or had as much as a cast was told “we found a mass in his chest”. I had no idea what a “mass” even meant at the time, but the demeanor of the physician and reaction of my parents gave me enough context to leave me terrified. The front I had been putting on all summer vanished and the scared boy in me asked in a cracked voice “Am I going to die?”
My life went from worrying about what college I would attend to worrying about body scans revealing the extent of my Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, bone marrow biopsies, and toxic chemotherapy running through my veins killing the cancer faster than myself. As a 17-year-old, I was treated as a pediatric patient by UNC’s oncology/hematology team. I was now spending my time at UNC rather than living out my senior year at school and on the football field. All I wanted was to be “normal” again. Simply approaching this life altering disease with the same “tough it out” on my own mindset. However, those around me poured their support for this fight in overwhelming fashion. A football game against Leesville dedicated to this fight as the “Coby Strong” game and guys in the school shaving their heads to help cope with losing my hair, girls dying strands of their hair purple for Hodgkin’s, shirts filled the student section that read “Coby Strong” while I stand on the sideline with my jersey over my street clothes and a hat covering my bare head.
Looking back, I had no idea how lucky I was to be treated as a pediatric patient at the age of 17. Nurses allowed visitors to stay well past visiting hours so I could get the socialization my personality thrives on. Doctors worked hard to allow me to attend games so I could be on the sideline with my team. The staff at UNC does an incredible job of making kids and their families faced with devastating circumstances belong to a tight knit community of optimism and hope. I was grateful for this, but longed for putting this community in my past and getting back to the life I lived before my disease. When Make-A-Wish approached me in the UNC clinic one fall morning and said I was approved for a wish of my choice, I was hesitant to accept. Here I was at 17 with all the resources, friends, and pampering in the world witnessing toddlers suffer with no idea why, kids suffer without great families, kids that did not become homecoming king that fall. I felt I had more than enough.
Hodgkins’s Lymphoma is a serious disease, but in the world of horror that is cancer, it is among the more treatable. My disease did not fit the typical category, and like my stubbornness to accept not being okay in the face of tragedy, it also was stubborn to treatment and went on to recur three times. Thus, requiring radiation, a bone marrow transplant, and countless rounds of chemotherapy. My physicians and family continued to urge me to take the wish. They explained that it didn’t have to be an unappreciated trip to Disney World like the unappreciated décor of smiling lions and elephants painted in bright colors covering my hospital room. I accepted and there was only one thing I ever had in mind. The patient that was constantly complimented on by hospital staff for the “cool” and “stylish” Seattle Seahawks apparel while watching ESPN highlights receiving chemo easily chose to meet his favorite athlete and team - Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks!
Make-A-Wish flew us out to Seattle and drove us by limo to the Virginia Mason Center, the Seahawks practice facility. There we were able to attend practice and meet the players and I was given the opportunity to speak at length with Russell Wilson. The superstar took the time to talk about topics such as my own battle, mindsets about worry, playing in the NFL, living in Raleigh N.C., how he visits kids every Tuesday at Seattle Children’s hospital, etc. He had remembered sending a ball to myself signed by him with the slogan under his signature “To Coby, Why not You”. I explained I watched him lead us back to a win over the Packers in the NFC championship game from a bed in the bone marrow transplant ward at UNC. The statistical probability of us winning at one point in the 4th Quarter was at less than 1%. That type of vicarious energy is incredibly motivating for anyone. No matter if I was 7, 17, or 70 years old, that type of triumph is powerful motivation for individuals suffering in a hospital or getting through rough patches in their daily life. I am among those that find it hard not to be romantic about sports; to see it as more than a game taking place.
Today, I remain out of the hospital with no evidence of cancer in my body approaching my 26th birthday in 21 days. The experience I had with my health motivated me to graduate with a degree in Human Biology from N.C. State and work in clinical trials. This seemingly tragic diagnosis is responsible for my career path, overcoming constant worry and working to live in the moment, and realizing no one can fight alone. It takes a team supporting their star quarterback to a seemingly impossible win for a trip to the super bowl. It takes a community for a kid to overcome cancer. Make-A-Wish epitomizes this concept by providing positive energy, hope, and happiness to kids that need it most. Some of us are more fortunate than others but we all face our own challenges, and it takes a collective effort to overcome these obstacles. Make-A-Wish, the NFL, and my collective battle against cancer is why I wear a purple Hodgkin’s bracelet that reads “No One Fights Alone” everyday and the rest of my life. It is why my step-mother is heavily involved with Make-A-Wish and why I plan to become more involved with it one day. It is an integral player on the team versus childhood illness.
