Forecaster prepares for fight of his life

You don't have to tell a weather forecaster to take life one day at a time. KSHB-TV meteorologist Gary Lezak now has a sobering reminder of that truth when he wakes up in the morning. He is surviving cancer.

This summer Lezak was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer after he found a tumor the size of a large marble in his left arm. Doctors later determined Lezak's cancer to be especially virulent and prescribed an aggressive course of chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

Those treatments begin next week when, over the course of four or five days, Lezak will be intravenously fed several powerful chemical cocktails aimed at killing any cancer cells that might still be in his body. He will lose his hair, his immune defenses and as much as 30 pounds during the ordeal, but he plans to show up to work and do the weather on Channel 41 when he can. Once it is all over, he and his doctors are hopeful about the long-term forecast.

"This is insurance for me to be cured," said Lezak of the chemotherapy and radiation. "My attitude's pretty good, but some things I know are going to be pretty hard." KSHB is planning to reveal Lezak's cancer to viewers on its evening newscasts today. As his treatment progresses, Lezak said he will give brief updates on his condition, lest viewers become alarmed by his appearance.

Besides his baldness - Lezak does not plan to wear a toupee - he will begin to look noticeably gaunt from the weight loss. "Aside from the fact that people are going to be wondering where Gary is, letting people know what he's going through will hopefully spark some people to get a checkup that they might not otherwise," KSHB news director Laura Clark said. "I think it will also be helpful to Gary. We'd love to have him around."

The chemotherapy doses are so strong that the 37-year-old native Californian, who says he has never spent a night in a hospital, will be an inpatient for a week during every round of treatment. Lezak admits the thought of making himself that sick terrifies him. But, he adds quickly, it is comforting to know that he found the cancer early, in a place where it would have been hard for the tumor to hide.

Mysterious lump

Lezak had run across the lump in his left arm, just above the elbow, earlier this year. But it wasn't until an in-line skating accident in July in which he broke his right wrist that he had the lump checked.

"The third time I went in to get my cast replaced, I was concerned because I felt like the thing in my other arm was growing," said Lezak. "So I brought it to the doctor's attention, and I'm glad I did."

Like the wisps of a small tornado tucked inside a dense storm system, it took a specialist, and the right radar, to identify the tumor. That specialist was Howard Rosenthal of the Mid-America Sarcoma Institute, which operates through Trinity Lutheran Hospital and Menorah Medical Center. Rosenthal eventually diagnosed Lezak with a form of extraskeletal osteogenic sarcoma, a rare bone cancer that grows away from the skeleton.

Only about 450 new cases are reported each year in the United States, said Rosenthal, and it's not known why people get the disease. Until 1979, extraskeletal sarcomas were difficult to treat, and only about 17 percent of patients survived five years, according to Rosenthal. But the development of new chemotherapy and surgical treatments have made survivors out of the majority of patients.

Survival rates now range from 60 percent to 90 percent after five years. And because of the size, type and location of Lezak's tumor, his survival chances are very high, Rosenthal said. Most of these sarcomas occur in the thigh and are much larger than the 3-centimeter tumor removed from Lezak's arm last month. "The average size, in all honesty, is cantaloupe size," said Rosenthal. "I've taken them out when they're watermelon size."

Despite the early detection of Lezak's tumor, a panel of sarcoma specialists recommended radical therapy to go after any minute traces. 'It is difficult' Lezak said he was "very depressed" when he learned the results of the panel review. Then he called on KMBC anchor Larry Moore, who fought his own high-profile battle with cancer eight years ago. "His first question was, 'Is it very difficult? ' " recalled Moore. "That's the first question I usually get, and I've learned there's no sense in lying about it. It is difficult. It's the most challenging thing you'll go through in life. But you can get through it. You can have a quality of life, and I'm proof of it."

Besides early detection, Moore says there are two other keys to surviving cancer. One is getting second and third opinions from doctors, which will help a patient maintain "psychological stamina" under the rigors of treatment. The other is support - "from family, friends and faith," said Moore. "Without that, you can't make it."

Lezak will be getting a lot of support. His parents are coming into town to be with him during the first round of treatment, and, of course, he will has his faithful and famous companion, Windy.

"She'll be very good therapy for me," Lezak said. Even before his medical problems arose, this had been a high-profile year for Lezak. Yet he has only spent about three months of it on camera. He was obliged to sit on the sidelines for six months because of a noncompete clause in his contract with WDAF-TV, the station he left to take the lead forecaster's job at KSHB.

During that time, KSHB cleverly kept Lezak's name in play with a series of advertisements framed around his dog. Rosenthal and Moore say that going to work will help boost Lezak's spirits. Even now the weather is, as it has always been for Lezak, a welcome distraction. "When I'm working here, as we are today, thinking about this extremely long dry spell we're in, I can get away from thinking about it," said Lezak.

"That's all going to change next Monday. "But I've already decided that when I have a bad day, those are going to be good days. And when I have a good day, those will be the really great days." In the meantime, said Lezak, "I would like to have as much support as I can. I think the more positive energy I can get from outside and from family and friends, the better I will feel."