I Was Picked

by Howard Shapiro

  After John finished eating, Scott got back and took him to the bathroom. They went to seven different floors until John found a restroom clean enough to use. “John was such a germ-cautious kind of person. He was so anal about germs he would even line the toilet seat at home with toilet paper,” Scott said. “You could imagine what it was like to find a clean public restroom.”

  Meanwhile, Gina called her supervisor at work to tell him the news. It was a tough call for her to make. “I remember crying and asking him not to say anything to anyone until we had a chance to tell our family,” she said. His reassurances helped her tremendously. “I remember him telling me if anyone [could] handle this . . . it would be me. I feel this gave me strength.”

  Back at her cousin’s house in Beaver County, Lexie didn’t know what was going on. Before they had left, Scott and Gina had done their own research and thought John might have Lyme disease. “I Googled everything possible and thought his symptoms matched up perfectly,” Lexie said. “I thought that was why he was so fatigued all of the time.”

  After John got settled in his room, the nurse gave him a Benadryl and told him that he would sleep well. They were going to do a biopsy the next day. Scott and Gina waited until John fell asleep before leaving to pick up Lexie from her cousin’s house. When they told her John’s diagnosis, Lexie had no idea what that entailed. “I was twelve at the time,” Lexie said. “I had no idea what cancer was, what its capabilities were, what side effects [it] had, or anything. My thought of cancer back then was just a sickness, a sad sickness.”

  When they got home, Gina packed an overnight bag. Her only concern in that moment was to stay by John’s side: “I didn’t want to leave John again. From the moment we were told John had cancer, I knew life as we knew it would never be the same.”

  The Challis family would not have the biopsy results until Tuesday, three days later. It was a waiting game now. John looked so weak and depressed. Gina didn’t want to leave him, but John asked if his dad could stay instead. Scott recalled, “I think it was a guy thing—in case he had to go to the bathroom, I would be there for him. Sleeping in a chair was hard. I remember John throwing things at me because of my snoring. John said it was embarrassing.”

  Since John’s biopsy was on Saturday, he wasn’t able to take a shower until Monday. Scott and Gina remembered John telling the nurses that he needed seven towels. Not knowing why, they just brought him the towels. “We forgot John’s slippers, and he wouldn’t wear those socks they give to the patients. . . . He said he would not allow his feet to touch the floor in his room,” Scott said. John made his dad line the floor from his bed to the bathroom. He even put towels in the shower stall so his feet wouldn’t touch anything.

  That Tuesday, Gina, Gina’s sister Jody, and Scott went into a conference room to meet John’s oncology doctors. They met Dr. Kim Ritchey and Dr. Anthony Graves, and sadly, the results weren’t good. The doctors told them John had hepatocellular carcinoma, a liver cancer that had already gone to John’s lungs.

  They were told that, with the size and the characteristics of the cancer, John had four to five months to live. As Scott said, “This just floored us.” Dr. Graves told them that he would be in John’s room in a couple of hours to talk to John. Later that day, Dr. Graves told John the disease would probably take his life.

  Scott said, “Gina and I thought, wow, you tell a sixteen-year-old kid that he is going to die. That was hard for us to grasp.”

  The doctor explained that John would receive five days of chemotherapy immediately.

  John replied, “Well, let’s get started, then.”

  The next morning, a nurse came to John’s room to take a medical history. She started by asking Gina family medical questions, such as whether there were any heart conditions in her family (there were) and if there was anyone in her family who’d had cancer (there was not). The nurse then turned to Scott and asked him the same questions. He told her there were relatives on his side who had passed from heart problems. She then asked him if anyone in his family had cancer, and he said yes.

  John suddenly turned to him, and with great disgust said to him, “So you’re the one who gave it to me.”

  “That really devastated me,” Scott recalled. “John was so bitter and angry. He never said it, but I could feel the tension between us for a long time.”

  Adding fuel to the fire, so to speak, were the very insensitive remarks that a social worker at Children’s Hospital made to John shortly after his initial chemo treatments. During her conversation with Scott, Gina, and John, John mentioned his love of hunting and fishing, and the social worker told him that his hunting and fishing days were over. This incensed Scott. “I will never forgive her for saying that to him,” he bitterly recalled. “The first day of hunting season in late November and [of] fishing season in mid-April were two of John’s favorite days of the year, and for that lady to tell him that his hunting and fishing days were over . . . it just really, really crushed him at a time when he was already feeling so low.”

  What the social worker that day didn’t know, and what many people around the United States and the world would learn, was that John Challis loved to prove people wrong. He was just getting started defying the odds and showing anyone who doubted his resolve and inner strength, or who made horribly insensitive comments, that he wasn’t going to back down or go down quietly in his battle against cancer.

  The news of John’s cancer diagnosis was now being filtered through the local community, and it came as a shock to those closest to him. Dan Lentz, John’s high school assistant principal and basketball coach, had not noticed any changes in John during the season. Back in February he had received a call from Scott, asking if he thought anything was wrong with John. “Scott told me that Johnny wasn’t acting like himself and was always tired and fairly grumpy,” he recalled. “I told him I didn’t see him on a regular basis now that the season was over, but that I would talk to him. Johnny and I would see each other in the halls from time to time, and I’d ask him how he was. Johnny was never one to complain, so he never shared anything.”

  Nothing could have prepared Dan for the call that Scott gave him one afternoon. “I really thought it was a bad joke,” Dan recalled. “I told him that was a horrible thing to joke about. Scott said he wasn’t joking: Johnny has stage IV liver cancer and they hope he makes it until Christmas.”

  Dan and one of the assistant coaches, Ron Kelm, went to the hospital the following week. When they walked into the hospital room, they couldn’t believe their eyes. John was so frail—thin and pale—and they could see the IV port sticking out of his chest when he lay back. They brought John a basketball. “He was still typical Johnny . . . polite, smiled when we walked in, tried to downplay the whole thing,” Dan recalled. “Johnny told me that day that he was going to beat the cancer. He told me that day that he was going to graduate high school and still wanted to go to college.”

  The next day, members of the football team came to see John, setting the stage for John to meet Taylor Dettore, someone who would become one of his best friends. “I was in the room next to John when he was first diagnosed. I was also recently diagnosed, and already bald at that time. My roommate and I saw all these hot football players walking into the room next to us, and being that we were sick and didn’t mingle with anybody, we were both creeping out of our window to see who was next to us.”

  Taylor took it upon herself to be the ambassador on the floor and welcome the new patient. “I can’t deny that I was pretty drugged up on medicine, but I wanted to make a valid effort to reach out to any new patients because I knew it could be hard,” she said. “But God gave me the personality and strength to reach out to other people and not worry about myself.”

  Her first meeting with John did not go well. As she remembered, “I walked over to John’s room and introduced myself. John was rude to me at first, but I don’t remember—or I just brushed it off. I know that when you get told something so serious, some people t
ake a while to cope with it.” That didn’t deter her from reaching out to John. “I saw in John’s eyes that he was scared and sad, so I wanted to make a special effort to reach out to him. I would always invite him down into the teen lounge with me day after day, but he just didn’t want to. But as time went on, he and I became the best of friends, and I couldn’t have asked for a better friend.”

  John started his five days of chemo treatments on Wednesday, June 28. Gina slept and showered at the hospital. Scott set up an office in John’s room, using two chairs for a desk so he could conduct business throughout the day. John never minded, except when Scott would get a little loud on the phone during the day and when he snored at night.

  A month after his treatment, the family found out that the tumor and the spots had not grown or spread, but they had not shrunk, either. Another round of chemo was administered, and still the treatments were not working.

  Scott told me he received a call from his sister-in-law, Joanna Jaworowski, about a liver cancer treatment that she had read about online: chemoembolization, a non-surgical procedure that delivers a high dose of chemotherapy to the tumor. It was being administered right there in Pittsburgh. Scott and Gina researched the treatment before calling the Liver Cancer Center in Pittsburgh to set up an appointment.

  The doctor at the Liver Cancer Center was hesitant about treating John. He had never done the treatment on someone so young. Scott and Gina begged him to speak with Dr. Graves; they were desperate. Two weeks later, the Liver Cancer Center called them to make arrangements for John’s first treatment with Dr. Clark Gamblin. Gina remembered, “He made us comfortable and [assured] us that John was in good hands. This [was the] start of a great doctor-patient relationship.”

  PART 3

  A BIG HEART IN A SMALL BODY: JOHN PLAYING TEAM SPORTS

  Throughout elementary school and into middle school, John developed a love for sports—mostly football and baseball, but hunting and fishing as well. Scott bought John and Lexie orange hunting vests, and once or twice a year they walked into the woods with him.

  John also had a competitive streak; he took losing very hard. While he was never quite athletically or physically gifted, John had the mind for the game, and he gave it his all. As his childhood friend Mitchell Meyers recalled, “Johnny wasn’t the most athletic kid on the team, but he always tried harder than everyone. . . . He showed a lot of emotion when things didn’t go his way, like if someone beat him during a drill, but it never stopped him from trying. He would get madder and try harder.”

  Mike Tibolet grew up with John, attending the same schools and church. Like with most young boys in western Pennsylvania, sports had a major impact on their daily lives. “Almost all of my memories with Johnny during our childhood [had] something to do with sports,” he said. “Whether it was Little League, football, basketball, etc., we were always either playing with or against one another. We would watch the Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins games whenever we could.”

  Sports also helped John get used to Conway Elementary School, according to his third-grade teacher, Cindy Zeigler. “John’s favorite subject, without a doubt, was recess. He loved how we played football together,” she told me. “I did my best to make sure everyone had a time to shine on the field. I think this was important in helping him get acclimated to the school. Everyone feels better when [he or she] can showcase a gift. He couldn’t wait to get on the field every day.”

  When John was thirteen, he joined the Pony League under the mentorship of baseball coach P. J. Calvin. While John could play ball, hitting never had been his forte; he kept getting hit when he came up to bat. Instead, Coach Calvin taught John the game. He learned how to read the pitchers’ feet and hands. John worked on his defense and his running, growing confident in his strengths.

  Still, after one too many bruises in the batter’s box, he made the switch to a new territory: the football field. John was never a starter; more like a twenty-third man. All his friends grew, yet he stayed small. Football has always been a game of strength and size. At five foot five and 108 pounds, John had difficulty competing against the bigger kids. Mitchell remembered, “We were always matched up against each other during drills in football, and he would always get so mad if I beat him during a drill!”

  Still, John kept at it. In the eighth grade, John’s team played a road game against Montour Middle School. The coach was short on players and started John on offense. Freedom’s team was getting destroyed. Toward the end, the team ran a play where John’s route was to run a streak straight to the end zone. The quarterback saw him behind the safety and threw the ball to John as hard as he could, and off John went. He jumped and fell back, the ball hitting his chest as he scored his first touchdown—a 45-yard pass, no less. Mitchell recalled, “I remember running down, and he was so excited. I mean, he might’ve been the happiest kid on the earth that day!”

  Even so, the elation from the play was not enough to convince John to stick with football. He was getting older, but his body wasn’t getting bigger. Freshman year and training camp were around the corner, and he was afraid of getting hurt—that football would be just like baseball. “Football is my game,” John told his father that summer. “I love it, but I’m afraid I’ll get crippled or something.”

  John was on the brink of quitting and had to make a decision: play or go. One day after practice, he turned to his coach, Andy Yeck. They were en route from the field back to the school, John with his head down, trying to hide his concern. Coach Yeck pulled him aside, and John told him his fear. “I don’t think this is for me,” he said, tears welling up. “I’m too small to play the game.”

  Coach Yeck disagreed. He told him to look at the sophomores who weren’t much bigger than him, yet they were solid contributors, just like John would be if he stuck it out. “If [you] have the willingness to try and then head over to the weight room after practice, [you will] see positive results in no time.”

  To the coach, it was a typical conversation he’d have with anyone else in John’s position, but it changed John’s world. John promised to follow Coach Yeck’s advice. He persevered as football became something more than a challenge.

  By the time training camp rolled around for his sophomore season, something was different. He wanted to go. He wasn’t the youngest or the littlest anymore; there were freshmen under him. He left for camp with his fans, stereo, and an air mattress—the works. He brought them home three days later, but he also brought a new perspective. It was like a different John Challis walked through the door.

  “He was much more respectful; he was his own man,” recalled Scott. “He spoke for himself. I felt like something clicked in him, and now he was in charge of his life.”

  John loved Freedom football, his coaches, and his teammates. As he got older, it stopped being about winning a game or losing it. Scott told me, “Don’t get me wrong—he liked to win, but it was more about being part of something. He used to get mad at players who would quit because they thought they should play more. It was a lot more than just playing—it was about friendships and being part of a team. John got his playing time, but Freedom never had a big team and didn’t win many games. Once you were getting beat by thirty-five points, the mercy rule would take effect. Freedom’s coaches started to substitute players in and out, and as parents, we liked it because John got quite a bit of playing time.”

  As he had with baseball, John started to become a student of the game. He learned the techniques, and even if he didn’t have the build to execute them, he helped out his teammates in any way possible, teaching them how to grasp the system. John played his strengths. His father swore John could have been a football coach.

  John definitely took his lumps out on the field. Even though he added on some muscle in high school, he was still a flyweight, but this didn’t stop him from going against the heavyweights on the line of scrimmage. John’s good friend Adam Rose (six foot two and around 220 pounds) recalled lining up against John at a practice during h
is senior year (John’s sophomore year). “John lined up at tight end across from me. He was normally a split end or wide receiver, and so he wouldn’t have to line up against a defensive lineman like me,” he said. “I’m about half a foot taller than him and a good hundred pounds heavier than he is, and he comes running up to the line and looks across and goes, ‘I gotta block you?’ One of the coaches is standing to the side, and he’s barking at John, trying to motivate him, even though he knew it was a huge mismatch. After the ball was snapped, John comes firing out. . . . I pushed him off, but he kept pumping his feet and kept trying to block me. He brought it all; he fought it with everything he had.”

  The Freedom team that year wasn’t very good, but in their last game, Adam’s final game, they were beating Shenango High 35–0, and the coach put in some of the younger guys to get them some playing time. Adam recalled what happened next: “John was lined up at cornerback and he was against a real tall receiver, who ended up beating him for a touchdown. Highly upset with himself, John trudged over to the sidelines and said to me, ‘I’m sorry I ruined your last game.’ I was standing around with a few other seniors, and I tried to make him feel better by telling him, ‘It’s not that big a deal.’ But he was genuinely angry at himself for giving up that touchdown and feeling like he let me and other seniors down. That was typical John, always worried about others and not himself.”

  Being part of the Freedom team became even more significant for John after his cancer diagnosis. When he was discharged from Children’s Hospital after his second and final round of chemo, he didn’t want to go home—he wanted to go straight to summer workouts for football practice. John watched from afar, setting a lawn chair on a hill that faced the field. He wrapped himself in a blanket even though the temperature and the humidity levels were both in the high eighties. When he did venture down to the field, he rode around with the football team’s trainer, Vince Sinovic, in his golf cart.