[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2020\/02\/joe-story-50ph\/#Article","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2020\/02\/joe-story-50ph\/","headline":"Ryan Shazier’s 50 Phenoms: Staying Strong Through Life-Changing Setbacks","name":"Ryan Shazier’s 50 Phenoms: Staying Strong Through Life-Changing Setbacks","description":"During one of Joe Aigner\u2019s many hospital visits, staff members dubbed him \u201cthe miracle man.\u201d \u201cThey always would make (jokes),\u201d Joe says. \u201cYou know, \u2018Here comes the miracle man.\u2019\u201d The name seems to fit. Over the course of about a year, Joe dealt with no fewer than five medical setbacks. That total includes a battle […]","datePublished":"2020-02-06","dateModified":"2023-04-17","author":{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.upmc.com\/","name":"UPMC","url":"https:\/\/www.upmc.com\/","sameAs":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/upmc\/","parentOrganization":"UPMC"},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"UPMC HealthBeat","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/UPMC-HealthBeat-Logo.png","url":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/UPMC-HealthBeat-Logo.png","width":600,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Joe-and-Ryan-Jersey.jpg","url":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Joe-and-Ryan-Jersey.jpg","height":325,"width":754},"url":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2020\/02\/joe-story-50ph\/","about":["Cancer Care","Health Topics A-Z","Heart and Vascular Health","UPMC Stories"],"wordCount":1800,"keywords":["Ryan Shazier's 50 Phenoms","Ryan Shazier\u2019s 50 Phenoms Season 1"],"articleBody":"During one of Joe Aigner\u2019s many hospital visits, staff members dubbed him \u201cthe miracle man.\u201d\u201cThey always would make (jokes),\u201d Joe says. \u201cYou know, \u2018Here comes the miracle man.\u2019\u201dThe name seems to fit. Over the course of about a year, Joe dealt with no fewer than five medical setbacks. That total includes a battle with esophageal cancer \u2013 a particularly lethal form of the disease \u2013 and open-heart surgery.During that year, Joe went through radiation, chemotherapy, multiple surgeries, side effects, a feeding tube, and more. But he kept waking up every day, ready to take on the next challenge. He remained motivated to stay alive for his wife and young daughter.\u201cI knew I would do whatever it was going to take to get through this,\u201d Joe says.Joe did just that, overcoming every sickness and injury. Cancer-free for nine years, he knows it took a miracle \u2013 but the miracle didn\u2019t come from himself.\u201cI\u2019m not \u2018the miracle man,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m the miracle of prayer and modern medicine. And it\u2019s a miracle that they had me walk out of there every time.\u201d\u2018You Never Want to Think the Worst\u2019Joe sat down for dinner on the Fourth of July in 2010. He cut a piece of steak, put it into his mouth, chewed, and attempted to swallow.He couldn\u2019t. The food wouldn\u2019t go down, despite his best attempts.\u201cThere was something happening,\u201d Joe says. \u201cStill, I just felt that maybe I swallowed wrong or something. You never want to think the worst, of course.\u201dJoe\u2019s wife, Carol, is an emergency nurse and determined he should go to the hospital for some tests. , Joe returned to the hospital the next day for an endoscopy. Doctors inserted a small, flexible tube with a camera and light attached through the mouth and into the esophagus to look for problems.The procedure revealed a tumor. A biopsy showed Joe had esophageal cancer.\u201cIt was completely unexpected,\u201d Carol Aigner says. \u201cThere is no family history for Joe, so it was rather devastating.\u201dEsophageal cancer is rare in the United States. It\u2019s also deadly: The five-year survival rate for the disease in the United States is under 20 percent. It\u2019s especially deadly at later stages, when the cancer advances to other parts of the body like the lungs or the liver.\u201cThe outcomes are certainly a lot better if it\u2019s picked up before it spreads,\u201d says John Rhee, MD, a medical oncologist and hematologist at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center.Joe was diagnosed with stage IV esophageal cancer, with scans revealing the tumor had spread to the lymph nodes in his neck.\u201cThat\u2019s a life-changing experience right there, when anybody tells you you have cancer,\u201d Joe says.Joe had no plans of dying \u2013 his daughter, Izabela, was 3 years old at the time of the diagnosis, and he says, he wasn\u2019t \u201cgoing to leave her.\u201dDoctors recommended he put his affairs in order, just in case, adding they would give him the best chances of ensuring he would survive.\u201c(They said) we\u2019ll do everything we can,\u201d Joe says. \u201cWe have very good outcomes from it, but it\u2019s going to take a lot of perseverance on your part.\u201d\u2018I\u2019m Not Going to Die Today\u2019Joe was ready to persevere. He just didn\u2019t know how much he\u2019d need to overcome.Because of his swallowing problems, Joe needed a feeding tube. Then came a round of radiation and chemotherapy that lasted around two months. The best way to beat esophageal cancer requires multiple types of treatment, Dr. Rhee says, meaning radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery.\u201cUnless it\u2019s very early stage, we often involve more than one modality,\u201d Dr. Rhee says. \u201cWe work with the surgeon and the radiation oncologist.\u201dAfter the first round of radiation and chemotherapy, Joe\u2019s scans revealed the tumor hadn\u2019t shrunk, so he would need another round of both treatments.This time the scans came back with a smaller tumor. But because of all his treatments, Joe began to notice some nasty side effects.\u201cThere\u2019s nobody that enjoys chemo and radiation,\u201d Joe says. \u201cThe first one, you go, \u2018Oh, I can deal with this.\u2019 You just don\u2019t realize that\u2019s just a small dose, and once it starts to build in your system, it kind of gets a little more restrictive, so to speak. And that\u2019s kind of when the side effects start to take place.\u201dSmaller side effects included a coppery taste, like \u201cif you put a penny in your mouth,\u201d and an inability to touch or drink anything cold.But bigger problems began to crop up: One morning, Joe found he couldn\u2019t stand when he got out of his bed because his feet were swollen. He was diagnosed with gout, a form of arthritis that causes pain, inflammation, and swelling in joints.After getting treatment for the gout, Joe woke up three weeks later with shingles \u2013 a rash that comes from the same virus that causes chickenpox \u2013 on his back. After children get chickenpox, the virus remains dormant in their bodies; it can come back later in life as shingles, particularly in people with weakened immune systems.In Joe\u2019s case, chemotherapy\u2019s effect on his immune system potentially led to the side effects like gout and shingles.\u201cIt just starts to get to the point (where) you have to laugh,\u201d Joe says. \u201cYou have to move through it. You just sit there, and you go, \u2018Well, it\u2019s just another day. We\u2019ve got to just keep moving on.\u201dAt one point, Joe\u2019s weight dropped below 100 pounds. He couldn\u2019t pick up and hold his daughter, an especially difficult blow for him. But he knew he had to keep fighting.\u201cIt was just a day by day,\u201d Joe says. \u201cYou know, you just get up every day, and you say to yourself, \u2018I\u2019m not going to die today.\u2019\u201d\u2018We Worked Together\u2019Joe\u2019s doctors planned to remove the tumors from the lymph nodes in his neck and his esophagus after his second round of chemotherapy. Those plans changed \u2013 doctors removed the cancer from his neck, but the tumor in his esophagus was still too large for resection.After another round of chemotherapy, Joe was ready for the esophagus surgery \u2013 or so he thought.While Joe took a routine pre-surgery stress test, his doctors noticed some abnormalities. Further tests revealed four blockages to the arteries supplying blood to his heart. Joe would need heart surgery before doctors could address the tumor in his esophagus.\u201cThat was another one of those moments that you started to reflect again,\u201d Joe says. \u201cIt was like, really?\u201dDoctors performed coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), the most common type of open-heart surgery. The procedure uses blood vessels from other parts of the body and connects them to the blood vessels surrounding the blocked arteries, bypassing them, to restore normal blood flow.Joe came through his CABG procedure safely, setting him up for his esophagectomy a month later.\u201c(My doctor said), \u2018The four bypasses is going to feel like you got hit by a bus,\u2019\u201d Joe says. \u201cBut the esophageal resection, being that it\u2019s over 14 hours, will feel like you\u2019ve been hit by a freight train.\u2019 And you\u2019ll make it back, but it\u2019s not going to be fun.\u201dJoe made it through the 14-hour procedure, which also included a medically induced coma for two days after the surgery.The surgery was successful. The tumor was removed. But even then, Joe had one more setback after his feeding tube was removed for the last time.\u201cMy daughter had been waiting patiently for nearly a year for me to be able to pick her up again,\u201d Joe says. \u201cSo as soon as I got that OK, she was excited to have me pick her up. I pick her up, and immediately I had this pain in my back. I felt a pop.\u201dTwo of Joe\u2019s vertebrae in his back had collapsed, yet another side effect of all the chemotherapy and radiation. One more surgical procedure fixed that, finally putting Joe back together again.\u201cWe were a family, we did it, and we worked together,\u201d Carol Aigner says. \u201cSince I\u2019ve known Joe, actually, he does not accept defeat. That\u2019s not in the vocabulary.\u201d\u2018I\u2019m Going to Make the Best of Every Day\u2019For someone who went through so many serious health challenges in a short time, Joe lives a normal life with Carol and their daughter Izabela, now 13 years old.Some things have changed, however. Joe and Carol started their own small business, one that he hopes one day to pass along to Izabela.He\u2019s already passed on his passion for golf, a sport that helped him get through his trying times. He would watch The Golf Channel sometimes while sick, and sometimes he would go out to hit a few balls in his yard. Now Izabela plays, and plays expertly \u2013 she is the top-ranked female golfer at her age division in southwestern Pennsylvania.\u201cI\u2019m very proud of my dad, from what he has conquered throughout the couple of years of the cancer,\u201d Izabela says. \u201cI\u2019m just so proud of him that he kept on fighting when you could have easily given up. He never gave up hope.\u201dPart of that was Joe\u2019s motivation to survive for Izabela \u2013 \u201cI just couldn\u2019t see having her grow up without me,\u201d he says \u2013 and Carol.He also is thankful for all the help he received from family and friends during his health problems. Carol took charge of his care, calling doctors and setting up appointments. Friends and neighbors were there to watch Izabela or provide other assistance. Even Izabela, 4 years old at the time, helped by making peanut butter sandwiches for Joe or staying with him.\u201cThere\u2019s no I in team, there really isn\u2019t,\u201d Joe says. \u201cYou need family to help you out. And then, once you get there, the doctors that you need, it\u2019s a team of doctors. From the oncologist, to the surgeons, the radiology department.\u201dNine years cancer-free, Joe says he hopes and prays that it will never come back. But the ordeal put everything in perspective, allowing him to view everything in his life as a blessing.\u201cYou take a look at every day as a new day,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I\u2019m going to make the best of every day because you just never know what\u2019s going to happen tomorrow. And you can\u2019t worry about it because you can\u2019t change it. You just have to persevere and push through and have the hope that everything works out well.\u201d "},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"2020","item":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2020\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"02","item":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2020\/\/02\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Ryan Shazier’s 50 Phenoms: Staying Strong Through Life-Changing Setbacks","item":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2020\/02\/joe-story-50ph\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]