Health & Medicine / Cancer

You never know how far you can go until you’ve left everything behind. And as Eric Drew waited alone in the cold rain on a dock of the Seattle waterfront, he had come to the bitter edge.

Icy water lapped against the planks as he leaned on a cane, barely able to stand. Though only 36 years old, this former high school quarterback and magazine model now resembled a war victim. His once-dark, wavy hair was completely gone, his blue eyes were sunken. On his back he carried a small sack filled with plastic bags of antibiotics, antivirals, and antifungals. A hose ran from the bag straight through a catheter in his chest. If he caught even the slightest cold, he could be dead.

It was February 2004, and Drew was dying of acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a savage cancer of the blood and bone marrow. In a healthy person bone marrow acts as a sort of factory of stem cells, the vital cells that mature and divide to form other essential blood cells throughout the body. The leukemia, however, was making Drew’s factory go haywire. Instead of producing healthy lymphocytes, white blood cells that fight infections, his bone marrow was unleashing abnormal lymphocytes into his bloodstream. Even worse, the bad cells were multiplying so rapidly that they were overtaking his healthy cells—making him harrowingly prone to deadly infections.

Chemotherapy and radiation had completely compromised his kidneys and destroyed his immune system, requiring a constant infusion of potassium, magnesium, vancomycin, Cipro, and other medications to help keep him alive. He had spent the past year in and out of hospitals from Stanford to Seattle. He had endured seizures and infections and got so bloated with fluids that his limbs blew up like some hideous cartoon. Most recently, he had undergone a bone marrow transplant that, he was told, was his final hope.

But his illness was not what brought him to the water­front that night. As he lay in his hospital bed, Drew had been getting harassing phone calls from irate banks and credit card companies demanding payment for purchases he had never made. Taking him for dead, someone had stolen his identity, he discovered, and was racking up thousands of dollars in bills. Now, after getting a tip-off, he had come to the docks to meet an anonymous informant who claimed to have the skinny on the thief.

While Drew’s family and doctors pleaded with him to rest, Drew couldn’t let it go. As he had learned, there was only one way to save himself. He had to fight.

When you’re on your way to do good, you don’t think everything will turn bad. As Drew drove to the American Red Cross to donate blood on December 3, 2002, in San Jose, California, he had every reason to feel on top of the world.

Drew was living a charmed life. He had been a director of business development for a software company. He had a gorgeous girlfriend, a 21-year-old college student named Nicole Floor. He had just been approved for a million-dollar loan on a beautiful house in his lifelong hometown of Los Gatos, a hilly community near San Jose. Gregarious and popular, Drew had tended bar at the hottest club while in college at San Diego State University. For a while he had topped all his friends’ buddy lists by managing a chain of go-go clubs.

Since hitting his thirties, however, he had begun taking steps to find more meaning in his life. Adopted as an infant, he had recently been seeking out his birth family and had connected with his half siblings across the country. To give back to his community, he had been donating blood once a month.

As he arrived at the Red Cross this Tuesday, however, Drew wasn’t feeling as healthy as normal. He had been unusually fatigued for the past couple of months. “Gosh, Eric,” the nurse said, “you look kind of pale. Your red cell count, which is usually 45 to 50, is down to 30. That’s borderline anemic. It doesn’t look alarming, but you should go see a doctor.”

Drew took her advice but didn’t think much of it until his receptionist buzzed him a few days later. “The doctor’s trying to get hold of you,” she said. “He says your blood test is back.”

Why the urgency? Drew wondered as he dialed his doctor. “There’s something concerning me here,” the doctor explained, “and I need you to see a blood specialist on Monday.”

What particularly troubled Drew was the fact that his doctor had hustled an appointment for him during the hematologist’s lunch break. As Drew pulled into the parking lot for his appointment, his stomach twisted. The sign at the San Jose Medical Center read “Cancer Center.”

As the doctor walked in, Drew nearly leaped from his seat. “Doc,” he said, “what’s going on?”

“It’s too early to tell,” the doctor said. “You traveled to Africa recently, right?”

Drew nodded.

“It could be the late onset of malaria. Let’s test the bone marrow and find out.”

Drew could not sleep for the two days it took to get the results. He drove back to the cancer center with his mother, Cindy, for emotional support. This time when the doctor came into the examination room, he was crying. “This is the hardest part of my job,” he said as he put his hand on Drew’s knee and told him he had cancer. “Your bone marrow is 100 percent cancerous. I don’t know how you’re standing up. You need to go to the Stanford Cancer Center. If you don’t check in tomorrow, you won’t live five days.”

“I have some very bad news.” Drew could hardly believe the words appearing on his computer screen as he typed. After seeing the doctor, he had gone home to Los Gatos and begun e-mailing his friends and family. “I have been diagnosed with a very severe, rare, and deadly form of leukemia, which generally kills within a few weeks,” he wrote. “The odds are not good for me to survive....”

As his cursor blinked, there was no way he could describe the depth of sadness he felt. He was a young guy moving ahead in every aspect of his life, and then the carpet got ripped out from under him. He felt as if his entire identity was being stripped away. For Drew, a type A quarterback, the situation was flat-out unacceptable. He made Nicole a promise when she came to visit him that night. “I’m going to beat this,” he said.

Drew had overcome adversity his whole life. Born out of wedlock during a Texas hurricane, he was put up for adoption at birth. As a kid in Los Gatos, he fended for himself, hunting rattlesnakes and quail for fun and food. He drew inspiration from his high school football coach, Charlie Wedemeyer, who was paralyzed from Lou Gehrig’s disease and bound to a wheelchair and respirator. Wedemeyer never gave up. Before every game, Drew and his teammates would say, “Let’s do this for Charlie.”

As his cancer treatment began on December 16, Drew brought that same conviction with him. “You’re the Stanford Cancer Center,” he told his doctors. “I trust you. Hit me with what you got. Don’t worry, I won’t let this kill me.”