Giving Back
- 21-year-old cancer survivor Tim Tusick was at the top of class a few years ago in high school and had everything going for him, then everything took a turn when he got to college and faced a leukemia diagnosis.
- The athlete learned how to use his misfortune to give back, and helped raise $1 million for others also facing the disease. Now, a few years later, the young activist is in remission.
- Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow; Symptoms can include enlarged lymph nodes, bruising, fever, nose bleeds and bone pain.
As he fought, the athlete learned how to use his misfortune to give back, and helped raise $1 million for others also facing the disease. Now, a few years later, the young activist is in remission.
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One night, he woke up with a worrisome nosebleed. “I woke up with blood all over my chest, all over my face.”
At the hospital, his nurse told him that his hemoglobin (a protein in your red blood cells) level was four, and his spleen, an organ in the upper abdomen that filters your blood, was the size of a football. “I see my dad out in the hallway, he’s crying, he’s talking to the doctor, and mom’s sitting next to me and she’s crying,” he shared.
His parents broke the news that he had acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Tusick remained calm.
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“I had learned so much in wrestling about discipline and being strong. My godmother came in and she goes, ‘what are we doing here?’ I said, ‘fighting,'” Tusick said.
“The only time I’ve cried during this treatment was the first day I came home. I got out of the shower and I looked at myself in the mirror and everything I had worked for in wrestling, was gone.”
Yet, he never stopped working out or going to school, and was thankful for the support from his family and his community.
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One day, the Leukemia Lymphoma Society reached out to him and that was the beginning of his activism.
“They have a campaign called students of the year. And they compete with each other in a span of seven weeks to see who can raise as much money for cancer research,” Tusick said. “We sold t-shirts posted on our social medias, had Super Bowl squares. We raised $960,000. It was a record-breaking year.”
Tusick realizes that he is fortunate to come out the other end and have his health back, and strives to continue to lift people up with his journey.
“Many people aren’t as fortunate as me, but I hope they can look at my story and they’ll be able to be motivated to keep believing in themselves and have a positive attitude.”
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And that is exactly what Tusick continues to bring, a positive attitude. “Life is a whole lot easier if you don't feel bad for yourself,” he wrote in a recent post. “I shouldn't be alive and that's something I'll never forget. Everyday when I wake up, I'm smiling just because I woke up.”
What Is Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL)?
Learning About ALL
In general, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Dr. Olalekan Oluwole, a hematologist with Vanderbilt University Medical Center, recently sat down with SurvivorNet to talk about ALL, how it affects the body and the type of treatments that work to fight it.
"ALL is a type of cancer that is very aggressive," Dr. Oluwole told SurvivorNet. "It grows very fast. Within a few weeks, a few months, the person will start to feel very sick. And that's why we will have to give it an equally aggressive type of treatment to break that cycle.”
He says many times the leukemia is rested in the bone marrow, and because it is an abnormal growth, it just keeps dividing.
"It doesn't follow rules, and it doesn't stop," he told SurvivorNet. "Not only that, because this is part of the immune system, the immune system is sorta like the police of the body. So those abnormal cells that have now become cancer, they have the ability to go to many places. They go into the blood, and they often go into the tissue or the lining around the brain."
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"By the time somebody comes to us and they have ALL we already assume that it has gone everywhere in the body, and we have to treat them like that," Dr. Oluwole says, also explaining that many patients present with fever or infections because the bone marrow has "failed in its ability to make other types of blood cells."
All About Acute Lymphoblastic LeukemiaAnswers to the Most Common Questions
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