Blanock has outlook worth learning from
Luke Blanock gathered his Canon-McMillan High School baseball teammates in the dugout. Their team was struggling last month in a big game against Mt. Lebanon ace Austin Kitchen. Blanock also was pitching a gem despite undergoing chemotherapy treatment a few days earlier.
“Look here, guys,” Blanock said, pulling off his ball cap.
Inside were big clumps of his hair, which had fallen out during the game.
There was nothing wrong with Blanock’s sense of humor.
“Can you guys please get a couple of hits?” he asked. “This is what this game is doing to me.” If only it were that simple. Blanock, 18, is fighting for his life against Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare cancer that
surrounding soft tissue. His long-term prognosis is not good.
“I think about it once in a while,” Blanock said of dying. “But I don’t dwell on it. When I’m a cancer patient, I deal with it. When I’m not getting chemo, I come out and play baseball.”
Blanock was diagnosed in December 2013. One day, he came home from basketball practice complaining of a sore back. The next day, his legs locked and he couldn’t walk. Two days after that, in incredible pain, he had surgery to remove a mass on his spine.
Blanock’s parents, Kurt and Janice, were in the room when doctors told him the mass was cancerous. A subsequent scan showed the surgeons didn’t get all of the cancer, that it not only had wrapped itself around his spine but had spread to his left arm, left leg and two areas of his pelvis.
“We were all crying and Luke was yelling, ‘Why? Why? Why?’ ” Kurt Blanock said. “He grabbed whatever he could and threw it against the wall. But that only lasted for a minute or two. He calmed down and said, ‘I’m going to make cancer my bitch.’ ” The fight was on. Blanock started chemotherapy Dec. 31, 2013. Those treatments and radiation wiped out the second half of his junior year of high school. A scan in August was no more promising. “The cancer was everywhere,” Kurt Blanock said. Doctors ruled out more surgery. “They told us Luke’s outlook wasn’t good enough to do surgery,” his dad said. High-dose radiation on all of the metastatic sites was ordered.
“He never really complained,” Kurt Blanock said. “He treats his treatments as minor inconveniences.”
Doctors cleared Blanock for physical activity in the summer. He was on the Canon-McMillan basketball team this past season.
“He didn’t play a lot, but he contributed,” Kurt Blanock said.
A scan in December gave the Blanocks hope.
“N.E.D. — No evidence of disease,” Kurt Blanock said. “Everybody was happy, but Ewing’s is relentless.”
Another scan in March showed the cancer was back in Blanock’s left leg. His dad gave him the news at baseball practice. He began more chemotherapy April 6.
“I wasn’t surprised,” Blanock said. “I knew there was a pretty good chance of recurrence. I’ve dealt with bad news before. I was prepared to deal with it again.”
Blanock went on the spring trip to Myrtle Beach, S.C., with the Canon-McMillan team. His father is the pitching coach. Luke was the starting pitcher in one of the games and, in the most emotional moment of the season, manager Frank Zebrasky sent Kurt to the mound to take his son out. “We both started crying,” Kurt Blanock said. “I just told him how much I loved him …
“As parents, we’re supposed to pick him up. But he always picks us up.”
Having a child face a serious illness is every parent’s worst nightmare. CanonMcMillan’s nine baseball seniors were honored Wednesday before a game against Carrick. Imagine Blanock’s parents’ thoughts when they were introduced with him and escorted him on the field. He couldn’t play that day because he just had a 1½-hour chemotherapy treatment.
As part of the senior day pageantry, there were pictures of each of the players, one showing them now and one as a little kid. Blanock might have been 5 in his photograph, his hat turned sideways and a goofy smile on his face. It was jarring to see. That kid didn’t have a care in the world.
Kurt Blanock said he has trouble sleeping and often
“When I’m a cancer patient, I deal with it. When I’m not getting chemo, I come out and play baseball.”
Luke Blanock
wakes up in the middle of the night with an anxiety attack.
“Are we doing enough? Should we consider one of the clinical trials? They don’t even know if those treatments are safe for humans. But should we try?”
Luke Blanock came into his parents’ room one night and told them, “This is no big deal. The chemo isn’t that bad. I don’t mind the radiation. I even get to take a nap when I go to the hospital.’ ”
Blanock’s teammates let him down in that game against Mt. Lebanon, a 3-1 loss despite Blanock’s threehitter. But they have been with him throughout his ordeal. So have his Cecil Township community and the surrounding area. A #LukeStrong sign hangs in center field at the CanonMcMillan ballpark. Bracelets with #LukeStrong and Make Cancer Your Bitch have been sold as fundraisers. Opposing players bought #LukeStrong shirts and wore them in warmups. Blanock’s father said Mt. Lebanon basketball coach Joe David gave his son $1,000 and told him to spend it on himself, not on medical needs.
Troy Polamalu telephoned Blanock and sent an autographed jersey. Clint Hurdle and Merril Hoge called. Mario Lemieux sent a note with a copy of his book about his battle with cancer. Former San Francisco Giants pitcher Dave Dravecky, who lost an arm and shoulder to cancer, reached out.
Blanock’s girlfriend is Natalie Britvich. “She’s been awesome,” Blanock said. “When I can’t be positive, she picks me up.” It was Britvich who shaved Blanock’s head after the Mt. Lebanon game.
Blanock said the support has been overwhelming. He has taken strength from Mitch Albom’s book “Tuesdays With Morrie” about a man dying from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis — Lou Gehrig’s disease. He also has listened to Jim Valvano’s iconic “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up!” speech so many times that he knows the words by heart.
“Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul.”
Blanock has no plans of giving up or even slowing down. Next month, he will take a senior trip to Myrtle Beach with classmates. Soon after, there will be a family trip to Greece provided by the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
“My grandfather is from Crete,” Blanock said. “He always said if he ever won the lottery, he would like to go back. I thought it would be great if we all could go.”
Blanock has been cleared to graduate from CanonMcMillan despite missing so much class time. He has been accepted to Pitt and Ohio University to study finance and accounting, but, because of his chemotherapy treatments — “They say they will be ‘indefinite,’ which is a really annoying term,” he said — he plans to return to high school in the fall to officially get his degree.
Blanock’s fight is brutal, but it keeps him going. So does the powerful message he took from Albom’s book.
“Enjoy the time you have,” Blanock said, getting emotional, “and don’t worry about the other stuff.”
There is a lesson there for all of us.