Winning was my business. When I coach the Lady Bull-dogs of La Plata High School, I tell them no matter how badly you’re doing in a game, you can turn it around if you fight hard enough. I’d never seen anyone fight harder than my two-year-old granddaughter, Lily. Lily had a malignant brain tumor. This kind of cancer had a fatality rate of 90 percent for children her age. How could a little girl beat odds like that?
“We need to get more aggressive with her treatment,” the doctor said as I sat in his office with my daughter, Kaci, and her husband, Tim.
More aggressive? I thought. In the last six months Lily had been through surgery and chemotherapy. She barely had the energy to sit up in my lap. Her blond hair was gone, and she was so thin, even being held made her sore. Still it wasn’t enough.
“I’d like to try a combination of chemo and radiation,” the doctor said. “But once we radiate her, I don’t think her body will be able to tolerate more. We’ll be out of options.”
“We’ll do it,” Lily’s mother said. Our family has never been one to back down from a challenge.
Tim and Kaci moved into a Ronald McDonald house near St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Five days a week for 30 days Lily pressed her tiny face into a specially formed mold and held still while machines shot radiation into her body. Then it was more chemotherapy. I tried to encourage her the only way I knew how when I visited. “Fight, Bulldogs, fight and we will win the game,” I sang to her softly.
That was the La Plata fight song, the one the crowd sang at our basketball games. What Lily was facing was a lot worse than a full-court press by the Scotland County Tigers, but the song still seemed right. “Who fights? We fight! Red white fight fight!” Lily was too weak to do any singing, but her half smile was a little victory in itself.
Once the treatment was over we waited three months to let it take effect. In early July, we all returned to the hospital for the MRI. On the drive there I tried to stay optimistic, but the doctor’s words kept playing in my head: If this treatment doesn’t work, we’re out of options. On the basketball court I could always see ways for my girls to fight back. But none of those tricks would work on an enemy like this. I was helpless.
Kaci’s phone rang in the car. “The hospital had to reschedule Lily’s scan for this afternoon,” she said, clicking her cell phone closed.
It wasn’t going to be easy killing time until then. In her car seat beside me Lily gazed out the window, a bright cotton cap covering her bald head. On the basketball court I tell my players to visualize winning. “If you can see it, you can do it,” I say. I tried to visualize Lily a healthy little girl again, speeding out on the court to congratulate the Lady Bulldogs after a win, quick and agile as any power forward on the team. It seemed impossible. The doctor’s words seemed so hopeless. Without hope there was nothing to fight for. I can’t make that happen, I thought. God, please help Lily.
We pulled into a restaurant off the highway. In the parking lot was a van with white shoe polish letters on its windows: God Is Great, it read. Nothing Is Impossible.
If only I could believe that, I thought as we went inside. Lily sat close to me and slipped off her cap. A man walked up to the table. Not a waiter, but another customer—a sports fan. He wore a Cardinals ball cap and t-shirt. “Mind if I ask what’s wrong with the little girl?” he asked.
“Lily had a brain tumor,” said Kaci. “She’s had chemo and radiation.”
The stranger pointed to a family sitting a few booths from us—a woman and several small children. “My wife had stage four leukemia,” he said. “The doctor told us we couldn’t have any more children after the treatment. Guess God didn’t get that memo, though, because we just had the littlest one there.”
No one at our table said anything, but I knew what we were all thinking: If the doctors were wrong about that, maybe they were wrong about Lily’s chances. I felt a little of that old fighting spirit returning.
“May I pray for Lily?” he asked.
“We never turn down prayers.”
“God, I know you love Lily,” the man said above the rattle of breakfast dishes around him. “Help her overcome her affliction.”
The man and his family got up to leave just as our waitress delivered our food. Through the window I saw them all pile into the van, the one with the shoe polish on the windows. Nothing is impossible, I thought. I laid my hand over Lily’s. Who fights? We fight! Rah rah rah!
When the hospital called we took Lily in for her scan. I paced the halls the way I paced the court during a tough game. When I returned to the waiting room my wife and daughter were sobbing. Oh, no, I thought.
Stephanie threw her arms around me. “There’s no cancer!” she said. I looked at the nurse in disbelief.
“We found nothing on the scan,” she said. “Your family has been given a great miracle.” That’s exactly what it felt like.
Lily’s future is still uncertain. She has a lot of catching up to do with her development. The cancer could return. But whatever happens in her future, she’ll be ready to fight it and so will I. Because thanks to a certain Cardinals fan, I know I don’t fight alone. Nothing is impossible with angels on the home team.
