Dan Shay, R.I.P.

I wanted to share my brother Dan's obituary with my readers. Over the course of the past year, I've posted periodic updates about Dan's struggle with leukemia and my tussle with heart disease. Neither chore was pleasant, but my brother fought a stone-cold killer in AML. A heart attack and its follow-up seemed easier to understand and deal with. I feel that I'm in it for the long haul, thanks to the wonders of surgery, medications and devices such as the stent and the implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). It's doing its business 24/7, keeping my heart on track and standing by to kick-start my heart should it run wild. Whoa, Nellie, Whoa!

My brother's heart stopped beating today some time before 4 a.m. MST. I got one of those middle-of-the-night calls, the ones that carry bad news. Dan was gone, my Tallahassee sister Molly said. Gone. Thirteen days ago the docs gave him two to four weeks to live. They were eerily accurate.

It was only Sunday night that I sat beside his bed and watched "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" with him and his wife Nancy. They held hands while the spaghetti western played out on the bedroom TV. I was certain that I'd seen the movie at the drive-in when it came out in 1968 but the scenes reeled by and none of it seemed familiar. It's possible that I was doing something else at the drive-in -- my algebra homework, perhaps -- and I just missed the important parts. 

At one point, I heard Dan snore and looked over at him. His pain meds were doing their job. He looked old and fragile. He gripped the TV control in his left hand and Nancy's hand in he other. She was sleeping the sleep of the dedicated caregiver, one who had been with Dan for most of 49 years. They met in the sixth grade at Our Lady of Lourdes grade school, where Mercy nuns tortured young minds and we came up with creative ways to return the favor. I remember seeing them hold hands way back when, one of those days when it occurred to me that they liked each other, they really liked each other.

That's a long time to really, really like someone. You might call that love. I do.

Here's the obituary I promised. It was a group effort:

Daniel Patrick "Dan" Shay, 60, was born in Denver, Colorado, and spent the majority of his life in Ormond Beach, Fla. He was an avid surfer, Harley rider, devoted husband and a loving father. He loved traveling to foreign countries (mainly to surf) and loved seeing his children experience different cultures. Dan was always planning for his next adventure. 

Dan was a 1971 Seabreeze High School graduate and honorably served in the U.S. Air Force as an air traffic controller for four years. He was a civilian controller at Fort Lauderdale International Airport for 3 years and Daytona Beach Airport for 22 years. In retirement, Dan started his own business, Daytona Gear, and graduated from Embry-Riddle in 2007.

Dan is survived by his high school sweetheart and love of his life, Nancy Breslin Shay, two sons, Ryan and Connor, both of Tampa, and a daughter, Bryce, of Ormond Beach; three brothers, Michael (Chris) of Cheyenne, WY, Tom (Tani) of Palm Bay and Tim (Jen) of Ormond Beach; four sisters, Molly Shakar (Jamie), Maureen Martinez (Ralph) and Mary Powell (Neill), all of Tallahassee, and Eileen Casey (Brian), Winter Park. He also is survived by 47 nieces and nephews and numerous family members and friends. He was preceded in death by his parents, Thomas and Anna Shay, and by a brother, Pat.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent for Uno Mas School, Costa Rica Church, c/o Salty Church, 221 Vining Court, Ormond Beach, FL 32176.

Dan is loved by many and will be greatly missed. Come tell your “Dan” stories at his Celebration of life on Saturday, November 23, at Salty Church at 1 p.m. There will be a paddle out at Granada approach following the service.

Stories from the front lines of The Big L

Acute myeloid leukemia.

The Big L

My brother Dan has it. So does my retired coworker Marirose. You may know someone with AML.

If you're the praying kind, say some prayers for these fine people. Wish them good health and cheer. Long life and happiness.

It's a relentless killer. Doctors and researchers have come a long way but there is so much more to be done. The survival rate is around 23 percent. Chemo and bone marrow transplants prolong life, sometimes lead to remission and even cures.

Dan has subjected himself to all of the treatments in the past year. It still wasn't enough. A month, the docs say, as if they know to the day your span on this earth. It's their best guesstimate. It never really helps. But it's the question everybody asks: "How much time do I have, Doc?"

The answer never satisfies. But we are curious and we ask.

So who knows?

Last week I flew down to Florida to visit Dan. He was surrounded by friends and family but his only big brother lives 2,000 miles away in Wyoming. Bad news travels fast and I would have been on the first plane out but couldn't get on it so I settled for the 100th plane out. Dan and I had time together, and time surrounded by family. Dan and I were the first two of nine born to Anna Marie Hett and Thomas Reed Shay. We're less that two years apart. Our Mom liked to joke that she didn't even know whether Dan could speak until I went off to kindergarten. I was his mouthpiece, his constant companion. "Danny needs a drink of water" or "Danny is hungry." Once I went off to school Dan handled his own requests, and has been doing fine with them ever since.

A wise person once said that you can tell a lot about someone by the people he surrounds himself with. If you didn't know Dan, but were in a room with his friends and family, you'd know what a fine person he is. He has a cool wife and three great kids. He has friends from high school and friends from five years ago. He has air traffic controller friends (his career for 25 years) and biker and surfing buddies, Harleys and surfing being his main hobbies. An old Air Force friend called on one of the days I was there. His house is a busy one, filled with laughter and stories and good food and cold beer.

Dan not sipping the brews these days, as his intake seems devoted to painkillers of a different sort. Makes it tough for him to string words together to converse with all of the people in his life. Part of that is due to "Chemo Brain," and part to the leukemia itself. It's advancing on all fronts.

Pray for Dan. And if you're in a giving frame of mind, you can give to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society or the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The best thing to do is live every day as if it were your last. I had my own brush with mortality in 2013. You never know when you arise in the morning if you will see the sunset. Make it count.

Leukemia is a family affair

My brother Dan found a match.

I wrote over the weekend about Dan’s search for a bone marrow donor. Millions of people are on the donor registry, but very few have just the right qualities to match Dan’s metabolism.

Dan was diagnosed with leukemia just before the 2012 holidays. The holidays, it seems, are a dangerous time for the Shay family. I celebrated them by having a heart attack. My brother Dan celebrated them by going into the hospital for a gall bladder surgery that turned into a diagnosis for acute myeloid leukemia. Five of my other siblings spent Yuletide swabbing the inside of their cheeks and spending the swabs off to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Our sister Molly did not return a swab kit because the Italian post office was on strike, or maybe it was the railroads or the airlines.  Anyway, she finally located her kit at the P.O. and sent it off to Houston.

The first almost-perfect match for Dan was our sister Mary, who is the youngest. It’s better to have a match among family members, as the rejection rate is lower. Mary was excited to be the chosen one. My sister Maureen thought she was going to be the chosen one, as she and Dan have a lot in common.  But Maureen was not a match.

I was not tested. My recent heart attack and my advancing age left me out. Age, it seems, is not as big an obstacle as my medical condition. Donating marrow takes a toll on the body. The docs prefer to have donors between the ages of 18-44, although they will use those in the 45-60 range. Once you reach 60, though, the strain on the donor’s body is higher and the quality of marrow is lower. Since I’ve already had one heart attack, I could easily have another.

My sister Mary is afraid to fly. So, she drove from Tallahassee to Houston with Maureen and Dan. A few days after arrival, Mary went in for a battery of tests while Dan underwent another round of chemo. Complications arose. Not with Dan but with Mary. X-rays detected a spot on her right lung. More pictures were taken. The docs decided to do a biopsy. Results showed cancer. The docs decided to remove the middle lobe of Mary’s lung and the take a look at the lymph nodes while they were at it. Mary, of course, is stunned by this turn of events. People tell her that she’s lucky to be at MD Anderson, the best place in the world for cancer treatment. She agrees, but can’t help asking, “Why me?” She wonders why she’s the only one crying in a hospital filled with cancer patients from all over the globe. Her answer: “They knew they had cancer before they came here. I didn’t.”

Mary had cancer and Dan no longer had a donor, as current cancer patients are not good risks. Mary will be operated on at MD Anderson on May 28. Dan returned to Florida to find a new donor. Local fund-raisers and donor sign-ups were held for him in Daytona and Ormond Beach. News finally came last week that Dan had a 20-year-old donor that fit the bill.

Then came a surprise. The long-delayed kit from our sister Molly landed at MD Anderson. The preliminary test showed promise. When the final results came in, Molly was as good a match as Mary, although slightly older. Apparently, a 57-year-old sibling is a better prospect than a 20-year-old stranger.

There’s a catch. Molly is finishing up a stint as a lactation specialist at Aviano AFB in Italy. She’s been over there for more than a year. She likes her job and, on days off, is learning a lot about fine Italian wines and food. She has traveled to the Vatican and to Venice and Croatia. But she still needs to wrap things up before arrivederci. She’ll be back in the states in late May, make her donation and head back to her home in Tallahassee. She will have to rest up from jet lag and marrow lag.

Dan will receive his transplant of cells and will be in Houston recovering for 100-some days. His body will be vulnerable after the infusion of our sister’s cells. Infections can occur. I’ll probably fly down to see him for a week. I’ll be recuperating from surgery to implant an ICD which will keep my heart beating regularly – and prevent catastrophic heart failure. Just call it the rhythm method. I got rhythm, who could ask for anything more?

The rhythm method? That was my parents birth control process, which is one reason they had nine kids. But if they had used another more trustworthy method, Dan would not have all of these wonderful siblings and their transplant-friendly bone marrow. My wife Chris and I used to joke around with our son and daughter. When they were fighting, we’d caution them: “You may need a kidney someday.” We didn’t realize the truth in that statement.  You may need a kidney someday, or a batch of bone marrow. 

On the Cheyenne Day of Giving May 10, the person you save may be your brother -- or mine

Every four minutes, someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with a blood cancer like leukemia. A few months ago, my brother Dan in Florida was one of them, and he's looking for a bone marrow donor. Watch this video and find your local donation program. In Cheyenne, you can register to be a bone marrow donor at the annual Day of Giving, Friday, May 10, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Kiwanis Community House in Lions Park. See you there! The person you save may be my brother -- or yours.