Jones, Yellow Jackets Rally Around Cancer-Stricken Classmate
Nov. 22, 2007
By JACK WILKINSON
In a perfect world, Sara Keene would be spending Saturday afternoon
thusly: In the north end zone stands in Bobby Dodd Stadium, sitting
behind the Georgia Tech band and beside her boyfriend Ben Hollerbach
and his Theta Chi frat brothers, rooting for the Jackets -- Sara's
Jackets -- to upset Georgia, once the team of her childhood.
But then, Sara's world has been anything but perfect since March.
Since that abrupt, middle-of-the-night hospital visit for Bells palsy
on one side of her face revealed a far more perilous diagnosis: Acute
myeloid leukemia. Cancer.
In a perfect world, Sara would be sitting in the Tech student section
Saturday, cheering her pretty head off and rooting for her new buddy,
Djay Jones. He reached out and touched someone -- a stranger -- with a
phone call a month ago. Djay's No. 23 in your Tech program, the
dreadlocked defensive back and an even finer newfound friend than he
is a free safety.
And Sara? In a perfect world, she wouldn't be a 21-year-old sorority
girl in a wig. But then, chemotherapy usually demands a wig.
Keene won't be at Grant Field for Tech-Georgia. She'll likely be back
home at her mother Cookie's Fayetteville house, or perhaps still in
the hospital where she was readmitted Wednesday afternoon. The latest
lab work indicated her liver enzymes were still up. That altered
Saturday's plans.
"Bless her little heart. She's resilient," Cookie said early Wednesday
evening. "If I could only be half the person my child is. This isn't
drastic. We didn't expect this, but she only went in for a diagnostic
tuneup. It should only be two or three days in the hospital, and then
she'll be home.
"I know," Cookie said, "that Sara would be at the game in a New York
minute if she could."
"I've always loved football," said Keene, a fourth-year Tech student
majoring in materials science and engineering. "Being raised in a
Southern home, as soon as fall comes,..."
Crap about being a Techie. "This year," she said, "they may be nice,
because I have cancer."
As a child, Sara was fond of one Bulldog in particular. ""I was around
in the Bobo days," said Sara. "I loved Mike Bobo because of his last
name. Now he's an assistant coach [Georgia's offensive coordinator]."
When Keene had to select a college, football figured into the
equation. "I didn't want to go to a small school where you had
rinky-dink teams," she said. "I wanted to go to a big school, where
they play for championships.
"I feel I'm an even bigger, cooler fan," Keene said, "now that I have
an in with the team."
The first phone call came two months ago. It was Shanny Burge, an
adminstrative assistant in Tech's football office. "Some of the
football players want to come visit you," Burge told Keene. "Djay
Jones wants to talk to you and set it up."
Keene's reply: "THE Djay Jones?"
Yes. Jones grew up in St. Mary's, in south Georgia. Keene's father
(her parents are divorced) lives there. Through Jones' mother and a
network of relatives and friends, he'd heard about Sara's illness.
They spoke on the phone. They hit it off.
"I was just trying to reach out to her and do anything I could," Jones
said. "I feel we're student-athletes, but at the same time we're all
family. I just tried to cheer her up."
"We talked. He wanted to know when it would be a good time to visit,"
said Sara, who was back in Emory Hospital by then after a September
relapse following her first auto-transplant. "I had to talk to the
doctors first.
"He said all these players wanted to bring a bus. I was a little
nervous when I heard that!" she said, laughing. "I said I'd rather
meet all of you guys instead of five or six.
"It was really surreal, Sara said. " I had to think about it for a
minute: 'Do you have the right person? Do you really want to meet me?'
Then Djay explained the connection."
They were originally supposed to meet on Nov. 8th, at a dinner at the
sorority house where Keene lived. Due to medical concerns, they
finally met on Monday, Nov. 12th, at the "Cookout for Keene" organized
to raise money for the Shirlock Foundation. The organization
financially benefits the families of students who have leukemia; more
than $4,000 was raised that night.
On the lawn of the Tech Tower, Keene met Jones and many of his
teammates, after she'd just finished her chemo treatment for the
month. "I was just walking toward her and, 'Oh, Sara!'" Jones said.
"There was a glow. She couldn't wait for that day. It was just good to
see her smiling."
Many Tech football players showed up: Tashard Choice, Philip Wheeler,
Taylor Bennett, Darryl Richard, many freshmen, Matt Rhodes and most of
the offensive line. Bennett and some teammates grilled hamburgers and
hot dogs. All paid $7 each. There was a D.J., and a rap group, and a
warm feeling. Keene, and Jones, were particularly grateful.
"She's a nice young girl," said Jones, who usually speaks to Keene on
the phone or text-messages her after each Tech game. "She understands her situation. She's
living day-to-day, because tomorrow's not promised to anybody."
"You see these guys play each week, and they are all great athletes,"
Keene said. "From my standpoint, they're like super heroes. You watch
what they do, and watch it in awe. I just wondered what they were
like."
She was not disappointed. "They're great," said Keene, who has a
football autographed by the team on her mother's mantel, as well as a
Tech mini-helmet signed by Jackets coach Chan Gailey.
And Jones? "He's been a really good guy, and very supportive. A good
guy to have in your corner," Keene said. "He's such a nice guy. He'll
walk up to you and give you a hug. He's a genuinely nice person, and a
person like the rest of us."
By whatever means, Keene will follow the Jackets Saturday: On TV, or
radio. Even on-line via GameTracker, as she has while working at the
Barnes & Noble in Technology Square or while tending a concession
stand at Russ Chandler Stadium for Georgia Tech home baseball games. Keene will pay particular attention to her dreadlocked friend, the free safety wearing orange Shirlock Foundation rubber bands on each wrist.
"It was awkward," Jones recalled of their first phone conversation.
"But once you heard the excitement in her voice, it was like you knew
her your whole life: 'Sara, this is Djay.' I asked her about our
connections. I said, 'The important thing is I'm on the phone with you
and we're getting this thing straightened away.'
Once they finally met, Jones said, "I felt like I set off a spark in
her life, just to show her someone else who cares...Leukemia's not
hereditary. It can [afflict] anybody."
Now, with Sara's stem cell transplant surgery scheduled for Dec. 11th,
her doctor was taking no chances with the latest liver enzyme
readings. Dr. Amelia Langston prescribed 24-hour hospital care, with
a heavy regiment of antibiotics, the better to prepare Sara for her
transplant.
"Please just pray," Sara wrote in her CaringBridge on-line journal
Wednesday afternoon, "that this is just a little blip on the radar and
that everything is alright."
Unlike her initial auto-transplant, Keene is very encouraged about
this stem cell transplant. She has a donor this time, a 42-year-old
male whom she knows nothing else about. Nothing, except the fact that
he gives her genuine hope.
"I've been very optimistic," Sara said. "Not only optimistic, but
hopeful. Those two together keeps me going. You can get so bogged down
with the numbers and [percentages] that you forget that things are
hopeful.
"I have complete faith in my doctor," she said. "I have confidence and
faith in this donor. I feel it's the right one."
It's felt like that since Oct. 26th, when Keene signed her consent
form for the transplant. "I'm ready to get the ball rolling," she
said. "Ready to rock and roll.
"My Mom wants to see her 21-year-old daughter back, and her life
restored," Sara Keene said. "And I'm ready to have my life back
again."
And so on this day, for this belief much thanks.
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