The life that Batavian Curt Haight has called his own over the past 15 years is in under assault.
It has been a relatively uncomplicated life -- bowling in the winter and playing golf in the summer with his wife, Patrice, and their close friends; spending time with family; driving a truck to pay the bills; keeping an eye on his father-in-law, Vinnie Macheda.
Everything changed this summer when the 49-year-old right-hander, a consistent 200-average bowler in leagues at Mancuso Bowling Center, heard the word that nobody ever wants to hear.
“I had a sore leg and doctors found a lump in my left thigh, below the butt cheek,” said Haight, a Medina native who cut his teeth on bowling as a child at Sneezy’s Recreation Lanes in Albion. “We thought it was a cyst, which had gotten infected. I had it removed. The surgeon could tell right away it was cancer. It was in my hip and lungs … stage four.”
In medical terms, stage four is not good.
“My doctors have given me a year, year and a half to live,” Haight said. “We decided to attack it right now.”
Under the care of Dr. Manoj Agarwal at the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Wilmot Cancer Center, Haight is undergoing chemotherapy treatments for his hip and lung. “I go every three weeks and it takes six to seven hours,” said Haight, who drives truck for American Paving, a company based in Clarence. “They installed a power port in my chest where they administer two different drugs.”
Haight said about two days after the treatment he is overtaken by a “chemo fog” where everything becomes “cloudy” and all food “tastes like metal.”
“But I have to eat,” he said. “It’s important to keep up your nutrients and your strength. I’m not on any special diet because I have to take coumadin (a blood thinner).”
Initially, he was able to maintain enough strength to bowl despite the side-effects of the treatment, he said.
“I bowled a 710 series during a chemo week, but lately I haven’t been as strong as I’d like to be. Patrice has been bowling for me.”
Haight has enjoyed a measure of success in bowling, having recorded a 300 game, a 299 game and several 700 series, and having cashed in local tournaments.
He is of the mindset that he will strike out this disease, which has taken its toll on his family. His mother, Donna, and his niece, Heather Allen, succumbed to cancer, and Patrice is a breast cancer survivor (in her seventh year of remission).
“My wife went through it; she beat it. Now it’s my turn,” Haight said. “I have to keep a positive attitude. I’ve got that attitude that I can kick its butt.”
He said doctors have reported a 30 percent shrinkage in the tumor in his lungs (yes, he was a smoker – “for too many years,” he said). He goes for another chemotherapy treatment on Friday, and after that doctors will schedule another CT scan to evaluate the situation.
“When I was told I had cancer, I got angry and asked ‘Why me? But, since then I’ve become determined to beat this,” Haight said. “My wife and I love each other dearly … we’re the perfect pair, we think.”
Your bowling family is pulling for you Curt to be victorious in this fight, and make it back onto the lanes and to your Friday night golf league at Meadowbrook Golf Course.
That’s how it works in the community of bowlers – when one of us hurts, we all hurt.
(Mike Pettinella’s Pin Points bowling column appears every Thursday during the bowling season in the print and online editions of The Daily News. If you have an item of interest for his column, contact him at mikepett2002@yahoo.com, at 343-3736 or by mail at 55 Edgewood Drive, Batavia).