Cancer sucks, we all know that. Lots of people get cancer and it seems like lots of people are lucky enough to recover. Some people just get a nut chopped off and they are good to go. Some people get some treatment and they go into remission and become cancer free for the rest of their lives.

Then there is CANCER. Unfortunately, my good friend Mark Beban (pictured in my avatar photo) has CANCER. 2 years ago he was in his mid 30s and broke his ankle. It didn't heal right and then one day he started coughing up blood. Went to the hospital, did lots of test and then got the shocking diagnosis that he had Stage 4 lung cancer. Especially shocking since Mark is a non smoker. But it gets worse, the CANCER had spread to his liver and brain. At the time the prognosis was that he might have less than 8 weeks to live. Father with 3 kids all under the age of 4 at the time.

Miraculously, soon after that the docs discovered that he was genetically predisposed to be affected by a wonder drug called Tarceva that only works on a small percentage of patients. The drug was a miracle, after a while the cancer started to shrink and combined with the chemo he was actually in remission for a while. The strength he showed during these two years is amazing. He would go to chemo in the morning and then come and play in our hockey game at night. This was as recently as last June. A true warrior, he lived up to his famous last name (his dad Gary beat out OJ for the Heisman back in the day).

Then, a few months ago the Tarceva stopped working and the cancer returned. Even worse, it had spread to his spine. They tried a bunch of other stuff, but nothing worked. How quickly he then deteriorated was shocking and really showed just how dire the original diagnosis was and how amazing Tarceva was for a time. In the last couple months it has gone was downhill. Three weeks ago he stopped eating. 2 weeks ago he stopped walking. Yesterday they finally made the call to stop treating and moved him to a hospice facility.

Just went there at lunch with another teammate of mine to visit. Seeing him at his house 2 weeks ago when he was struggling to talk and recognize people was hard enough, but seeing him at hospice was almost too hard to handle. They expect him to pass away anytime, might hang on for a month at most. 3 kids all under the age of 6. Brutal.

Just awful stuff, Shakes. Didn't you guy do a big video thing or plaque for him? I remember something like that in the past. At least he's surrounded by his family in his finals days...whatever positives can be taken from this horrible situation.

i remember reading something like that too. all my deepest condolences to him and his family as well, shakes.

my friend passed at 2:30 this afternoon. Sad news, but grateful that its over and the family can start to heal, its been a really rough two years for them obviously.