Simply refusing to quit

Myeloma can’t stop Goad’s passion

For a person who thrives on persistent, goal-oriented optimism, Jeff Goad could not help but feel dread for his upcoming 50th birthday on June 3, 2010.

It had nothing to do with turning a year older. Rather, the negativity stemmed from having to hold a party just days after being diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare form of cancer that eats away at the immune system.

“We had a huge party planned with family and friends for my 50th birthday party. I’m thinking, ‘I don’t want to cancel this.’ But I’m also thinking, ‘This is going to feel like a wake,’” Goad said in a phone interview last week. “Everybody did a great job of trying to be positive and optimistic.

“But I just remembered from time to time I’d see people, some of the gals were kind of crying. And I was just like, ‘Damn, this just sucks. I’m supposed to be heading off to Scotland with some buddies to go on a fly-fishing and Scotch trip, and that’s just not going to happen.’ The world goes upside-down.”

But that upside-down world did not change the fabric of Goad, now 56. A multi-sport athlete in high school who had a brief stint on the football team at Purdue, the Chicago native insisted on maintaining his identity, myeloma or no myeloma.

As he prepares to run his first Boston Marathon on April 17, he is not cancer-free, but that won’t stop him from participating. Talk to him for a few minutes, and you get the sense his will would not allow anything less.

Initial diagnosis

A commercial real estate broker until two years ago, Goad was playing in a softball league in the summer of 2010 when he first realized something was wrong. He remembers taking a “really hard swing” on a pop fly and believed he pulled a muscle in his back.

“Middle of the night, I got up to go to the bathroom, and I took two steps, and I fell to the floor on my hands and knees,” Goad said. “I was like, ‘Hmm, this is bad.’ My legs just gave out. And then I start crawling to the bathroom, and I hear (my wife, Ramona, saying), ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I said, ‘Well, I can’t walk, but I still have to go to the bathroom.’”

When they went to the hospital, exactly one week before his 50th birthday, the doctor said Goad had a compression fracture in his spine between vertebrae T-11 and T-12. But that was not the worst of it. Multiple Xrays and MRIs later revealed the myeloma.

“I’d never heard those words (multiple myeloma) before, but I knew growing up in a medical family — my mom was a nurse and I had EMT training back in college — I knew what ‘-oma’ meant,” Goad said. “Well, he said, ‘This is treatable, and you’re in really good health, so you should be OK.’”

Perhaps the doctor did not realize Goad’s version of OK might be a little different.

The road back

Before his diagnosis, Goad had run in 13 marathons. As soon as Goad’s treatments began, his mind focused on getting back to running.

Of course, he knew it would not be immediate. Even after a two-flight walk up the stairs in his condo, he remembers thinking, “Nope, I’m tapped.”

That summer of 2010, he underwent chemotherapy. Then, a stem cell harvest that September, a stem cell transplant in October and a second transplant in March 2011.

The stem cell work was particularly draining. The husband of his physician, Dr. Seema Singhal, told Goad, “Basically, we’re going to kill you a little bit and then bring you back.”

Still, as difficult as the period was, Goad found pockets of hope to hang on to.

“I knew enough how scared to be,” Goad said. “In the hospital, with a zero immune system, infections and other kinds of things can bring complications and you can die. And so I measured that against my confidence of my medical team, and my mindset was like, ‘This is going to be OK. I’m going to make it through, and we’re going to do exactly what the script says, and we’re going to kick it.’”

Being able to run and train helped Goad recover. According to him, not only did the exercise build up his immune system, but it mentally pushed him forward. Incredibly, a little more than six months after that second transplant, he ran the 2011 Chicago Marathon in October.

“It was really almost surreal because it was taking me back to the first marathon I lined up (in 1987),” Goad said.

Worth the wait

Finding a way to run the Boston Marathon has been a goal for Goad — now a beer sommelier — since he was 29 years old. A few weeks from finally doing so, his health is not exactly cooperating. About a year ago, the myeloma became active again. Goad had to undergo a higher dose of chemo and take a steroid that causes fatigue, dehydration and a propensity to verbally lash out.

Goad has slightly fallen behind on his training, but he is determined to finish the race.

“Be smart. Don’t get hurt,” he said of. “I won’t pull out, no matter what. If I have to walk, I’ll walk.”

He will be doing so with his brothers, Brad and David, for a foundation to help find a cure for his disease. The goal is to raise $30,000 — people can contribute online at endurance.themmrf.org/2017Boston/gojeffgo — of which they’ve already raised more than $26,000.

As he prepares to run, Goad does not bemoan how his disease affects his journey. Rather, he feels lucky.

“I feel really blessed that I get to get out there and run this race and enjoy it,” he said. “I will definitely enjoy the sights and sounds. I learned that over the past few years. Too much head down blazing along, only worrying about time, you really miss the beauty of a marathon and the neighborhoods and the wonderful communities and the smells and the sounds of the music and all the things that make the fabric of the race so fabulous.”

So fabulous, even, that Goad realizes there still is a lot to love about the world. Even after his flipped upside-down.

‘Be smart. Don’t get hurt. I won’t pull out, no matter what. If I have to walk, I’ll walk. . . . I feel really blessed that I get to get out there and run this race and enjoy it.’ — JEFF GOAD, diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2010 and running Boston this year with his brothers David and Brad