As has been the case far too often recently for Wayne Turner, last Friday began with a fresh set of difficulties.
Since his Stage 4 bone cancer diagnosis became community knowledge in February, most of the days that followed have been more somber than sunshine for Turner, preventing him from making many public appearances.
Tyner’s legendary former football coach has spent most of this calendar year quite literally fighting for his life, doing so with the same quiet resolve he tried to instill in the countless thousands of young men who played for him during a career that stretched across four decades.
But even the gruff, tough Turner admits he sometimes wonders if the measures taken to fight it aren’t as physically destructive as the disease itself.
“It’s been rougher than I thought it would be,” Turner said as he described a routine in recent months that has included 10 cycles of chemotherapy — each lasting close to four hours — plus another 35 rounds of directional radiation, about 20 to 30 minutes every Monday through Friday, to treat the affected areas throughout his body (five cancerous spots on one hip bone, one on a rib and in his lymph nodes).