Support of community felt by Gapczynski in his fight with leukemia

by Peter Jakey, Managing Editor

Mike Gapczynski, 31, couldn?t understand why he was short of breath just climbing stairs. He had been running three miles a day, but yet was suffering some physical ailments. He had night sweats and an upset stomach, but being only 31-years-old, and nearly the picture of good health, his first instinct was to ignore the pain and growing symptoms. After enduring daylong chest pains in May, he gave in to the pleadings of family and went to the hospital.

?They were almost heart attack feeling chest pains,? said Alicia Kleiber, Mike?s girlfriend the last four years. ?I fought with him all day.? ?I called him while I was on the ship,? said dad Mike Gapczynski, captain of the Great Lakes freighter Edwin H. Gott. ?I told him to ?get yourself checked out.? ? Alicia said it was a blessing he hadn?t been called back to work on the boats this spring, because of the weak economy, because she believes he never would have gone to see a doctor.

Gapczynski early diagnosis was an enflamed chest well and swollen lung. He was told to take 800 milligrams of Motrin to get the swelling down. Mike was still sick a couple of weeks later, when Dr. Keith Wright at Rogers City Medical Group examined him. ?They did a blood test and ran some tests and it came back leukemia. I was told me get right over to Petoskey,? said Mike, in a weak voice Monday night at his parent?s business.

Leukemia is a form of cancer in the blood. Unfortunately, Mike?s was acute, meaning it is fast acting with a 30 percent chance survival rate for young men his age. WITH THE thoughts and prayers of a community and the loving support of a close family, Mike has been fighting the disease for the last three months. ?We?re going to be that 30 percent,? said the elder Mike confidentially. He came home for the first time last Wednesday, a couple of days ahead of schedule. Alicia didn?t announce it on Mike?s Care Page, as family wanted to let Mike get settled in before seeing anybody.

?Before this, I didn’t even know leukemia was a form of cancer,? said Alicia. ?It has been a rollercoaster of emotions,? said Mike?s younger brother Matt, who is a bone marrow match for the next phase of the recovery. ?Keep praying, keep praying, because it’s not over yet,? said mom Pam Gapczynski. ?We still have a long road ahead,? said Alicia. WHILE THE family knows there are more battles ahead, just sitting across the table from him brought about guarded optimism. A month ago, Mike was in an induced coma for 14 days from July 11-25.

?It was a bad scenario,? said Mike Sr. At one point the neurologist said Mike was the sickest person in the intensive care unit. Doctors were giving Mike chemotherapy treatment through a port in his skull, but he suffered a brain bleed and a seizure. That forced doctors to induce the coma with a paralytic drug.

On a day family will not soon forget, Mike opened his eyes again, July 25. His prognosis has improved greatly since that time, although he?s needed physical therapy to learn to walk and speak again. He lost nearly 50 pounds from 200 to 152, but is now back up to 164. ?You can see him getting better every day,? said Alicia. The elder Mike said his muscles were like jelly from the time spent in the coma. He has been speaking a little slower, but family teases him that he sounds like Don Corleone of ?Godfather? fame.

He also suffered some memory loss. When he came out of the coma, he couldn?t remember how old he was. ?He said he was 23,? said dad. Mike couldn?t remember he owns a Cobra Mustang either. ?It was scary to us.? ?It is nice to sleep in my own bed,? said Mike. THE LEUKEMIA has been temporarily stabilized with the aid of expensive chemotherapy pills.

?We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do,? said Pam. Family is still up in the air as to what will happen with the bone marrow transplant. They will know more in the next week or so, as tests were being conducted this week. It will take place at Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit. ?He’s going to have to crash,? said Mike. ?That’s when his red and white blood cells come down to zero. Then they take him a

nd slam him with the bone marrow. It is another critical stage we have to go through.?

Alicia said, ?They are going to be giving Matt some drugs to make his bone marrow produce more premature cells. Then they pull the cells from his arm and that’s how they give it back to Mike.? The community has supported Mike with fundraisers during the Nautical Festival men?s softball tournament. One of the teams wore yellow T-shirts with Mike?s name on it and the number ?77?, which is the year he was born. A co-ed softball tournament also is planned on area fields for this weekend to help Mike and his family.

?A lot of people have been praying,? said elder Mike. ?There have been prayers in the churches. A lot of the prayers have been pulling us through more than the medicine.? ?The town has been very supportive,? said Pam. ?I would like to thank everybody for their prayers and donations,? said Matt. ?I think it has been good,? said Mike. ?I am really surprised at how a small town could come together.? Mike played right field for the No. 1 ranked Huron baseball team in 1995. Now, he just wants to get back to where he was before. His goal is to get back to running three miles a day.

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