Not even cancer could keep St. Joseph's High School senior Chase Sanders down for long.

Diagnosed last year, Sanders, 18, is now in remission, and plans to attend Hancock College in the fall in the hopes of transferring to four-year university to study forensic science or kinesiology.

“The thing that strikes me about Chase is he is a well-rounded kid,” St. Joseph's Principal Joe Meyers said. “He's been an inspiration to everyone in our school because he's such a battler.”

In the fall of his junior year, Sanders - the football team's starting quarterback - began experiencing strange symptom, starting with unfamiliar bumps on his neck and in his armpits.

While he was able to brush those symptoms off, thinking he might just carrying a minor infection of some sort, by the time another month went by, “I was losing weight. I was having really bad night sweats. I would wake up drenched,” Sanders said.

When the symptoms couldn't be ignored anymore, Sanders' parents took him to a doctor, who ran a battery of tests.

The test revealed that Sanders had Hodgkin's Disease, a form of cancer that invades the body's lymphatic system.

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For close to a week, Sanders' parents kept the news from him so he could play in an upcoming football game against Santa Maria High School, knowing it could very well be the final game of their son's high school career.

They broke the news to him the next morning.

Although his parents were understandably upset, “I didn't get emotional. I maybe cried for like two minutes and that's it ... I knew I was going to be OK,” Sanders said.

Though chemotherapy was “hell - that's the only way to describe it,” the hope of getting better in time to play football his senior year kept him going, Sanders said.

He also remained academically focused, maintaining a “B” average and missing as little school as possible.

“If he had a chemo session on a Thursday or he had to go to Los Angeles or something, he'd be back in school Friday, even if he was sick. (School) was his refuge,” Meyers said.

The most difficult aspects of the chemotherapy, Sanders said, was not the constant nausea, but having to spend days on end locked in a sterile hospital room in order to protect his weakened immune system.

“It's weird being locked up in a room. I thought about life a lot. I thought, ‘If this is the end, this is a really crappy way to go,'” he said.

However, July 28, 2007, finally brought the news Sanders and his family had been waiting to hear ever since their cancer nightmare first began; Sanders was in remission.

His one regret was that he was not sufficiently recovered in time to play football, at least not the way he had played before.

Though he was part of the team, Sanders spent most of his time on the bench.

“But, my health was more important,” he said.

Having emerged through though the cancer battle victorious “but humbled,” Sanders gave some words of advice for patients just beginning their struggles with cancer.

“Cancer is whatever you make of it,” Sanders said. “I think it's a growing experience; If you can get through this, you can get through anything.

St. Joseph's will graduate 144 seniors today at 1 p.m. at the Hancock College Sports Pavilion, 800 S. College Drive in Santa Maria.

Natalie Ragus can be reached at 347-4580 or nragus@santamariatimes.com.

June 1, 2008