Twenty-year-old Andrew McKay felt a lump in his neck in late August.
“The first time I felt it I thought it was kind of weird,” McKay, a University junior, said.
It was on the front left side, where the lymph nodes are. He had had a few cysts removed surgically from his neck and chest about two years earlier, but this lump felt different-it was deeper and it was growing faster. The lump didn’t hurt, so McKay wasn’t going to worry.
“I had noticed it a while back but didn’t do anything about it,” McKay said. “It just kept growing and got to a decent size.”
He soon started wondering what was going on with his body though. He was sweating at night for no reason and the lump wasn’t going away. Around mid-November, McKay called his parents and expressed some concern.
“I knew I’d better get it checked out,” McKay said.
“When he told us about the lump in his neck getting larger, it sounded like it was still underneath his skin and wasn’t forming like a cyst,” his dad, Roger McKay, said. “It wasn’t acting like the other ones that had showed up.”
His parents set up the appointment. He went to the family physician, Douglas Thayer, who examined McKay. X-ray and CAT scan tests were ordered and his blood was drawn on Nov. 17. Roger said the doctor knew immediately that something wasn’t right.
“As soon as blood test came back, he recommended for Andrew to see an oncologist,” Roger said.
The good news, he would soon find out, was that it wasn’t leukemia. McKay was, however, diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer that occurs in lymph nodes. McKay, who was in the final stretch of fall term, said it came as a shock, but he knew it could have been worse.
“When I found out that it could have been leukemia, it was actually kind of a relief,” said McKay, who took two incomplete grades in classes that term during the whirlwind that ensued following the diagnosis.
McKay had a biopsy performed on him after Thanksgiving. Doctors extracted a sample of his bone marrow to determine whether or not the lymphoma had metastasized. He stayed overnight for the painful procedure.
According to the National Cancer Institute, Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a cancer of the immune system. Symptoms include the painless enlargement of lymph nodes, the spleen or other immune tissue. Other symptoms include fever, weight loss, fatigue or night sweats.
According to the site, there were an estimated 8,190 new cases of Hodgkin’s disease in the United States in 2007, and around 1,070 people died from it. The cancer is most common in two age groups: Early adulthood (ages 15-40, usually around 25-30) and late adulthood (after 55), according to the Lymphoma Information Network Web site.
McKay didn’t know that many people died from it.
“It seems like one of those things like everyone should be able to survive,” McKay said. “And it’s not the case.”
McKay knows most of the statistics now. He learned a lot along the path of surviving his brush with cancer. He said his friends, and particularly his four roommates, most of whom are members of the Warsaw Sports Business Club, helped him get through it all by not making him feel any different. But, McKay’s experience did inspire some of the club members to change the cause of the Third Annual University of Oregon World Cup, held this weekend outside the Student Recreation Center.
For a second straight year, McKay was the operations manager of the event. The past two years, the recreational and collegiate soccer tournament has raised money for Parkinson’s disease research, which the founder of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center James Warsaw was diagnosed with. But this year, Richter and some of the other club members took a hard look at what their friend had gone through and decided the money should go toward Hodgkin’s lymphoma research and increased awareness.
McKay’s experience with chemotherapy, which left his roommates set on making the change in his honor, began in December.
An external port was surgically placed into McKay’s chest to administer intravenous drugs. Though the port saved his veins, he said it was bothersome at first.
“It is basically a piece of stainless steel,” McKay said. “It’s like a small roll of quarters stuck to you. Sleeping was annoying; other than that I got used to it.”
While making trips back home to Albany, Ore., every other weekend for around 12 chemo sessions, McKay would arrive at his parents’ house on Friday and, by Monday, was almost always back in Eugene. He decided to stay enrolled as a full time-time student during the winter and intends to graduate next spring.
“I didn’t want to make any sacrifices,” McKay said. “I wanted to stay on track in terms of school. Over the winter break, I had a few times to do chemo and see if I was up to it. After that, I figured I would be able to keep doing schoolwork. It would at least keep me doing something rather than sitting around the house doing nothing for whole year.”
His parents, and McKay’s doctors, were all amazed by his determination.
“He really wanted to stay in school, and he also works part time,” Roger said. “The doctors said the same thing; they were surprised considering how tiring and exhausting chemo can be.”
Watching him we knew he went through periods where he was totally exhausted from chemo and yet when it came time to go back to school he did everything he could to get back.”
Oncology doctor Vickie Li, of the Albany Internal Medicine and Oncology Center, told McKay that his body was responding well to the chemo. The sessions, where he was connected to an IV for about two hours and given a set of drugs, often left him feeling tired and nauseous though. His parents, and friends, were always there to give him a ride afterward, including roommate and World Cup director Eric Richter.
“It was the least we could do,” said Richter, who lived in Ganoe Hall with McKay their freshman year and who now share a house together with three other roommates this year. “It was emotional at first, but I never had a doubt in my mind that he wouldn’t make it.”
Roger and his wife, Carmen, said it was touching to see just how much his classmates cared.
“When he first found out my wife and I would go with him to sessions,” Roger said. “Then, he’d like to ask if other friends wanted to go. Soon enough, he had people from the University, different friends, going with him every time. That was really cool to see. We thought he might go by himself sometimes but he would bring a few friends by after chemo. We got to meet a lot of people he was spending time with.”
On March 16, 2007, months into his battle, McKay got a call from Li. It was after business hours and McKay said he had a feeling it might be good news.
“During that week I had gone in and gotten a scan to see if there were any cancerous tumors left in my body,” McKay said. “It was a Friday and the doctor called me and said there was no more cancer. It was a huge weight off my shoulders.”
McKay made his last trip to Albany for a chemotherapy session last Friday. That day, he also had surgery to remove the port in his chest.
In front of McKay now is some radiation treatment, a precautionary measure he’ll begin in June to make sure that the cancer, now in remission, does not return. He will also continue going to occasional checkups for the next five years. Roger, who works at Hewlett-Packard in Corvallis, said he has been lucky to work for a company that has a good health program.
In the meantime, there is still plenty to do. McKay is an accounting major taking 12 credits this term and had duties to fulfill over the weekend at the World Cup. He and his roommates all participated; three helped run the event and one played in it.
Though McKay deflected the decision to make the change because of his experience to his friends, he said he was touched that they did it.
“It meant a lot,” McKay said. “I had nothing to do with them changing it. Eric and a few of the other gu
ys just came up to me and said ‘We want to change what the tournament is going for.’ It was for Jim Warsaw; for them to change it for me, that’s a pretty big honor.”
“We saw it as a good opportunity to do what we can to reach out,” said Richter. “When he left for treatments, that’s one of your best friends who isn’t there; he was having a crappy weekend getting chemotherapy.”
After the experience, McKay said he’s changed how he views life, saying he feels both lucky but still very normal. Through it all, he has kept doing all the things normal college kids do. He sported Oregon gear at football games in Autzen Stadium and took photographic evidence of the Ducks’ upset victory against UCLA at McArthur Court this year. He parties with friends some weekends and studies and works during the week. His goals and aspirations span beyond maintaining his health.
McKay pointed out that Hodgkin’s is one of the easiest cancers to cure, though doctors told him there wasn’t a definite reason why he got it in the first place. Roger said they didn’t believe McKay’s four cysts, which he had removed as a teenager, were related to the lymphoma. Already, the National Cancer Institute’s investment in Hodgkin’s lymphoma research has increased from $89.7 million in 2001 to $124.2 million in 2005 in an effort to learn more.
McKay said it feels strange to think of himself as a cancer survivor. While at the center in Albany, he saw patients who he said were worse off.
“I had an 85 percent chance of surviving,” McKay said. “I went through all this stuff yet there are so many other types of cancer where people have to do years of chemo to maybe survive. I feel kind of lucky to have had this cancer. What I’ve been through is nothing compared to what other people have gone through. It puts you in your place.”
Now McKay, feeling as healthy and blessed as ever, wants to talk about what he’s been through.
“I’m not going to hid the fact that I had it,” McKay said.
The war that waged itself in McKay’s body for no apparent reason left him weak at times, but the aftermath has empowered him. He said he would like to make a visit to the Sacred Heart Medical Center to provide advice and support if it’s needed. He wants to help because he feels like he’s now able to listen with and relate to an entirely new group of people.
“It is definitely a small group and I don’t personally know anyone else who had it, but I feel like I am part of something bigger,” McKay said. “It makes you feel connected with a lot of people.”
Through his bout with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, McKay said those closest to him helped him maintain a grip on one of the things he fought hardest to ensure during the worst of the ordeal: A normal life.
“I don’t think they looked at me any differently and they don’t now. That is exactly how I want it to be,” McKay said.
Friends like Richter are trying to make sure things stay that way. But one thing Roger said McKay will have to accept is that he isn’t just another kid trying to do something with his life; he’s a hero to many now.
“I know he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself,” Richter said, “but I personally really admire what he did. His attitude toward everything, I won’t ever forget it.”