Stu Bykofsky: Fighting his breast cancer, hook, line and inker
SCOTT CAMILLERI'S odd journey began with a football thrown to him by his son and ended with a rainbow trout tattoo on his surgery-scarred chest, courtesy of the TV show "Miami Ink."
SCOTT CAMILLERI'S odd journey began with a football thrown to him by his son and ended with a rainbow trout tattoo on his surgery-scarred chest, courtesy of the TV show "Miami Ink."
Between the football and the fish was the searing pain, dull fear and fervent prayers that envelop those fighting cancer. The journey was even more strange for Camilleri because he was struck by breast cancer, one of the 2,000 American men so diagnosed each year.
The football was thrown in October 2006 by his son, Will, then 9. Scott muffed the catch with his hands and the ball hit his chest. The ball wasn't thrown like a Donovan McNabb rocket, but when it hit his chest, "it hurt more than it should," Scott says. "It feels like there's something there," he thought to himself.
"I'm a typical guy," says the 40-year-old native of Germantown. "I typically do not run to the doctor. If my knee hurts, I take an aspirin and it feels better in a few days."
Not this time, though.
"Whether one will say God was talking to Scott, I'd like to believe that," he says. This time he didn't ignore the pain.
He went to his family practitioner, who did not like what she saw. He was sent to a specialist and a lumpectomy was ordered. Scott figured his pain came from a cyst, or a fatty deposit.
When the doctor came in and said "cancer," Scott remembers, the doctor was wearing black shoes. He remembers the black shoes very well, but can't remember anything the doctor said after "cancer."
My sister is a breast-cancer survivor and the same thing happened to me when I heard the bad news. There's something about the C-word that short-circuits the brain. Maybe it's a defense mechanism.
After the diagnosis, Scott told his wife, Kimberly Ann, "Everything's going to be all right. It's all good."
She fixed him with a wifely glare to tell him, no, it is not all good. He was 38, with no history of cancer in his family, and, of course, he's a guy.
The VP for institutional advancement at Hatfield's Biblical Seminary, Scott was raised in a fundamentalist household headed by his pastor father. Scott is a religious man.
I wondered if cancer changed his relationship with God.
"I am not going to stop my son from playing football and getting hit, but I am going to be there for him," says Scott, who also has two daughters, Ellie, 9, and Sarah, 6. "My faith was only strengthened because God, my father, was there for me." Scott detected God's love in many ways, including the support of family, friends and his employer.
Last month, he celebrated the end of his first year after the end of chemotherapy. He will participate in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure on Mother's Day, as he did last year.
His took his chemotherapy treatments, which stretched over four months, at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. During biweekly treatments, his weight went up, his hair fell out. Ever the optimist, Scott turned what could have been dreary sessions into "dates" with Kimberly Ann, during which they talked and watched videos of "The Office" and DVDs of fly-fishing, which Scott loves (and Kim endures).
With chemo ended, they decided to get a tattoo on his scarred chest, to commemorate the end of treatment.
But what kind? "Am I going to get a skull?" Scott roared.
Kimberly Ann got on the computer, contacted "Miami Ink" and ziiiiip, they were in Miami getting a large rainbow trout put over Scott's mastectomy scar for a show that will air next month. His only tattoo, "It hurt like the dickens," Scott says.
But worth the pain, as a reminder of what he has survived. *
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns: