A couple of weeks ago on this blog, I wrote a piece about my 14-year cancer battle and the bond I typically share with men and women I meet who've been in combat. Today, I write about something more unthinkable: having to do both. Imagine fighting in Iraq under extremely dangerous conditions 24/7, losing two of your best friends in the battle, then finding out soon after you come home that you have cancer.
It's hard to even comprehend the courage Staff Sgt Clay Treska had to summon when, after serving in Iraq for a brutal nine-month tour and then coming home only to be told that he had testicular cancer.
"I was first diagnosed with cancer in April 2008," Clay recalls in an interview with me this week. "I'll never know why or how I got it, but I have to wonder if it's something I was exposed to while in Iraq. Just like the Agent Orange thing with all those Vietnam Veterans. I'll never know. All I know is, I was determined to stay alive. Not for me, but for the people who cared about me. I didn't want to let them down."
But that's just the beginning of Clay's remarkable story. A Marine for 12 years who was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Clay, 30, went through his chemotherapy at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, and in August 2008, they told him he was in remission. "I was determined to get my body back into shape," he says. The plan? To compete in a triathlon. Clay confesses that he actually started working out and rebuilding his body even before he was told he was in remission. But by late 2008, he knew his cancer had returned. He regularly complained about pains and aches in his body, but his doctors didn't catch it, he says. He was in such incredible physical condition, and looked so healthy, he says, the assumption was he was healthy. But he knew his remission had failed.
It wasn't until July of 2009 that he got so sick he ended up in the emergency room. "By then I had a tumor on my neck the size of a baseball," he says. "I found out on July 25 that not only was my cancer back, it was stage IV, and it was terminal. The doctor told me I was going to die, that I probably wouldn't make it to December."
Clay subsequently contacted Lawrence Einhorn, the renown oncologist who treated Lance Armstrong, among others. Einhorn told Clay he did have a chance to survive. But first, he was put through a series of tests to see if his cancer reacted to chemotherapy at all, and it did. Because of how sick Clay was, this experimental procedure involved the most powerful and aggressive form of cancer treatment a human being can possibly get.
"I wouldn't wish what I went through on my worst enemy," he says. "They basically kill you with the mega- high doses of chemo, and the stem cells, hopefully, bring you back to life. It's an inner struggle, it's pure hell. It's horrible, so severe that my body started eating itself away. I literally started to digest myself. I know that sounds disgusting, but it's true. I was so weak, I had no immune system. I was basically dead."
From the night of July 25, when he visited ER, he stayed in the hospital for the next 13 months. But unbelievably, even during the transplant and recovery, while he was still in the hospital he would train. In the ward, in his bed, wherever he could. He was determined not only to stay alive, but to do the half-triathlon in Hawaii in June. "If I had a nickel for every time someone told me I was crazy, I would be rich," Clay says with a hard-earned laugh.
Some days, he was so sick all he could do was meditate. Other days, just a slow, short walk from his bed to the window and back. Others, he'd do a few sit-ups. He never stopped fighting. And those few sit-ups kept increasing, and he began walking, then running around the hospital grounds and doing actual exercises in the ward. He also started going to school at San Diego State University, where he is studying then came back to the hospital after classes.
And on June 5, while he was still living in the hospital recovering from his year-long cancer treatment, to the astonishment of everyone he competed in and completed the Half Ironman in Hawaii, which consists of 70.3 miles of swimming, biking and running. "The doctors were all blown away. Everyone was. They didn't know what to make of me," he says. "I was in Hawaii for a week, and when I came back, I was right back at the hospital. I didn't check out until Aug. 25. Everyone thought I was going to die. Everyone. But instead, I ran in a half Ironman."
Now, unbelievably, he's on his way to Hawaii to compete in the big one, the Ironman World Championships on Oct. 9. This is a daunting 140 miles of running, biking and swimming against the world's elite triathletes. "I'm ready to go, but I'm nervous and have all these thoughts running through my head," says Clay, who decided in Iraq when his buddies died, long before he was diagnosed with cancer, that no matter who you are, you are going to die some day so you've got to make the best of every minute you are here. "I've obviously put a lot of pressure on myself, I always have." he says. "I'm really not supposed to be here, I was supposed to be dead last December, everybody told me that. I just hope I'm successful in Hawaii. I have to finish this race."
Clay, who is single and has no kids, says his saving grace through all of this has been his support network: "I have been blessed with wonderful friends a person could ask for. With the Half Ironman in June, I knew that my team and I had to start training while I was still going through chemo, the transplant, etc. Otherwise I wouldn't have been ready. With the family, friends, and supporters investing in me, there was no other alternative but to see this through to the end. Sick or not. Failure was not an option. No retreat."
Now he's going for the big one. But whatever happens in Hawaii, Clay is already a success, an absolute walking miracle with an indomitable spirit. He wants to become an advocate for cancer patients and show people that anyone can do what he did. But first, he really, really wants to complete that Ironman on Oct. 9.
"This isn't a macho thing, this isn't a pride thing, this is a survival thing," he says. "It's about life. I gotta finish that race. I can't tell you how many emails and calls I've gotten from people I don't even know. I have to do it, for my family and for my friends who supported me and for everyone who is looking at me for inspiration. What I'm doing everyone said is utterly impossible."
As a patient advocate myself, I've met thousands of courageous cancer patients, and as a journalist I've met thousands of brave Marines, sailors and soldiers. But I have never known anyone quite like Clay Treska. His positive attitude and will to live are simply off the charts. If his story were a fictional movie script, it would be rejected for being preposterous. But Clay is the real deal. And he has a remarkable and somewhat surprising perspective on cancer and war.
"Cancer is a lot tougher than combat," he says. "I signed up for Iraq. I didn't sign up for cancer. You just can't mentally prepare for cancer. The military gave me training, but with cancer, you are on your own, with no preparation. I was stuck with so many questions and had no answers. Fighting cancer is a selfless act, really, a way of showing those who love you that you care enough to fight for your life. Cancer can destroy the body, but it can't affect the human will. To beat cancer, your heart has to be in the right place."
Combat Marine, cancer survivor and triathlete, Clay, whose Quixotic take on life is something to respect, behold, and emulate, calls the upcoming Ironman event "my impossible." But with Clay, anything is possible. "The way I see it, I was supposed to die last December, so I'm happy to just be alive," he says. "And the love and support I get makes it that much easier for me to take on these kinds of decisions. I've never really been the kind of person to submit to the norm. So that gave me a little push to try that much harder. In your darkest hour, and believe me there were times when it got very, very dark, it is the love in your heart that will illuminate the path to success.'
Stay tuned to this blog for updates on Clay as he competes in the Hawaii Ironman, and beyond. I will keep you posted on how he's doing. Yo0u can also follow Clay's progress on his Facebook page.
