Feet of strength

North Aurora man takes the fight to cancer with Chicago Marathon

You have cancer.

Few sentences carry the sledgehammer-to-the-heart force of these three words. However, as devastating as this news is to anyone, one of its byproducts is more powerful than any disease, no matter how many lives it claims.

You see, for every person cancer invades, it awakens a sleeping giant like Matt Brown. In the early months of 2008, the North Aurora resident was dragged into the fight of his life when he was diagnosed with the blood cancer Hodgkin lymphoma.

Yet like so many people stricken with cancer every day, Brown drew a line in the sand. He reacted to this ambush not with fear, not with resignation. Instead, he looked it square in the eye and refused to yield the upper hand:

You will NOT get the best of me.

He also chose a new battleground: the Chicago Marathon. On Sunday, the 32-year-old took his place among 45,000 participants who challenged the 26.2 miles of winding asphalt.

"(Competing in that race) was my goal really from the first day I was diagnosed," said Brown, a writer and editor for the sports information company Stats. "I told my family and friends, 'I'm going to beat this, and next year I'm going to run the marathon.' That was my goal from the very beginning because of how much energy the disease took away from me."

"Just after the new year (in 2008) when I was going to bed at night, I felt this weird radiation feeling that started in the side of my neck and went up the back of my head and sort of rattled me," he recalled. "I went to bed and when I woke up the next morning, my memory was kind of scrambled. I had trouble remembering what my work schedule was. That was the first hint something was wrong.

"As the weeks went by after that it started to feel like a weird kind of flu that wouldn't go away. I just felt myself getting weaker, and my mind was also clouded by the disease. I was having trouble remembering things."

An examination in February 2008 revealed Brown had Hodgkin (also known as Hodgkin's) lymphoma.

"When I got the cancer, the very simplest things that you took for granted before, you couldn't do," he said. "In my case, I couldn't even walk through the aisles of a supermarket or walk to my car in a parking lot without feeling dazed and winded."

Determined to come back stronger than ever, Brown set the bar as high as he could: finishing the Chicago Marathon.

"I'd never really been an athlete before and I'd never run more than a couple of miles at a time in my life before," he said. "But having the disease really made me miss the ability to run at all, and I decided that I wanted to get it back."

Brown endured months of grueling chemotherapy, timing the sessions so the side effects would dissipate just before his wedding day on June 21, 2008. When he and his wife returned from their honeymoon, Brown underwent a month of radiation treatments. Once that was complete at the end of summer 2008, his cancer was declared in remission.

"I grew up in the Boston area, so we really were just steps away from the Heartbreak Hill portion of the marathon course," he said. "It was a tradition to watch it every year in April, and I just viewed the marathon as the ultimate feat to show you're physically fit. I wanted to not merely beat the cancer, but beat it so badly that I could be in the best condition of my life afterwards."

Brown needed support to reach that goal, and through a friend in California he learned of Team In Training, a branch of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society that helps train runners in exchange for fundraising efforts.

"I thought, 'This is perfect. This is the disease I have, I can raise money for it, and I can get a better training program than I would if I were doing it by myself,'" he said. "It's turned out to be great."

Val O'Dea, a Team In Training coach, recognized the influence of Brown's tenacity right away. Before their weekly runs, group members would gather for a "mission moment" to reflect on the cause for which they carry a torch.

"He got up the first day and ... described going to various doctors and how he was finally diagnosed with blood cancer, just trying to put that together in his head," O'Dea said. "He talked about how (the treatments) left him completely wiped out and how he got done with his last chemo and got married a few days later.

"I looked around the room and I thought, oh my gosh, if any of these people here are questioning 'am I in the right place at the right time doing the right thing?' I couldn't have said anything near what this guy said. He had said, 'I've never been an athlete, and I heard about Team In Training and I decided I would try something like this and I wanted to give back, so here I am.'

"Wow -- bowled me over."

Soon after he joined Team In Training, he was introduced to some of the local cancer patients being honored by the group.

"The most memorable thing to me is you could tell they are genuinely very thankful for what we're doing," he said. "They're almost surprised that there are people out there going to this trouble to help with the diseases that they're fighting. I can identify with it obviously because I've been there, too."

Cancer may have a sledgehammer, but humanity is countering with a fleet of wrecking balls. Since Team In Training's inception in 1988, participants have raised $950 million as they have conquered endurance events, from marathons to triathlons to hikes to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back.

"We're hoping to hit $1 billion soon, and it's involved 390,000 people; 40,000 annually join up," O'Dea said.

"When they cross the finish line, it's like a lightning bolt. (It becomes clear that) this wasn't about a marathon at all. It was about something so much bigger, and it's really overwhelming. It's a real life-changing type of program."

"It's a good, rewarding pain," he said. "I've got a medal, but I'll wear the pain with pride, too.

"The toughest part of the race was between miles 14 and 18. My foot started hurting, and I just had the thought in the back of mind of, 'How bad would this be if I had to stop?' I kept thinking, 'No, I can't do that. This is not as tough as fighting cancer was. Fighting cancer is tough; this is easy.' Right around Mile 18 I started getting picked up again. I realized the foot pain wasn't going to be constant and I could fight through of it. Once I got to Mile 19 or so, I knew I was going to finish."

Finish he did, and he helped raise more than $2,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Of course, that money represents only a small part of Brown's contributions to the cause.

"When I played the moment of crossing the finish in my head, I knew how much it meant to me -- I was going to conjure up whatever energy I still had," he said. "Right around the crest of that last bridge I just went all out and sprinted. Just seeing the finish, knowing it's there, knowing you're going to make it, it's the culmination of what's been a very long but very rewarding year and a half.

"Having cancer is horrible, but in a strange sort of way I don't regret getting it because of how much it's able to enrich life once you overcome it. This was something that wouldn't have been possible for me before I went through it."

His steady resolve from the beginning of his ordeal helped get him through the race. It also made sure his battle with the disease was over before it even began. And with people like Matt Brown in the fight, cancer has nowhere to run.