Battles With Cancer Define Young Athlete

ASK STEVE GREILING'S coaches and teammates, and they will tell you he is the kind of athlete you want on your team. A natural leader. A hard worker. A team player. His fight against leukemia shaped him into a competitive three-sport athlete. -----------------------------------------------------------------

MILL CREEK - Steve Greiling was too young to know how close he was to dying.

Only three weeks after his seventh birthday party, the first-grader suspected something was wrong as he returned from recess. He felt exhausted, faint and light-headed.

"The next thing I knew, the teacher was waking me up and I had a temperature of 102 degrees," Greiling said.

His mother, Sue Greiling, took him to the hospital the next morning. Within hours, he was diagnosed with the most common form of childhood cancer, acute lymphocytic leukemia.

Cancer and leukemia were words Greiling didn't understand. When most young boys are concerned with recess, after-school cartoons and Little League, Greiling's fight for his life began.

After surviving months of chemotherapy and radiation, a relapse in the fourth grade and the loss of his hair, Greiling is still a fighter - on football fields, wrestling mats and baseball diamonds. Greiling, now 18, is a senior three-sport athlete and one of the main reasons Jackson High School in Mill Creek has a 19-3 record, is the state's No. 5-ranked Class AA baseball team and has qualified for the state regional tournament Saturday. And it's no coincidence that the fight and fire he brings to the field are the same attributes he needed to survive.

Greiling - student-body president, A-student, team captain and ferocious competitor - says he's a better person having withstood and conquered the illness that nearly ended his life.

Greiling's parents had noticed lethargic behavior from their energetic son about three weeks before he was diagnosed with leukemia.

"There was no color to his skin, and he looked kind of pale, almost green," recalled Steve's father, Rich Greiling. "And at his birthday party three weeks before, he wasn't as aggressive and playful as he usually was."

According to the National Cancer Institute, ALL is a disease in which too many underdeveloped lymphocytes, the body's infection-fighting white blood cells, are found in a person's blood and bone marrow.

Greiling, who began chemotherapy two days after being diagnosed, was given two units of blood the first night to battle anemia. Seizures followed, and he was heavily sedated and slept for two days.

Greiling remained strong even when he was bed-ridden and undergoing chemotherapy.

"I was so young, I didn't realize how seriously ill I was," said Greiling, whose body responded quickly. "I didn't look at it as a life-threatening thing."

Pete Williams, Greiling's best friend at Mill Creek Elementary, was with him when he first collapsed and at his side when he underwent an excruciating spinal tap days later.

"Steve didn't even cry or anything, and I didn't see how he could take that," Williams said. "I saw tears in his eyes, but he wouldn't let them come out."

Rich and Sue Greiling took turns spending the next three nights with their son in the hospital, bringing stuffed animals, pajamas and books from home to make him more comfortable. Doctors expected a 30-day stay, but he was released in six days to the care of his mother, then a supervising nurse at Group Health.

Greiling's improvement over the next year was remarkable. He resumed playing sports, and doctors finally said the leukemia was in remission. However, he suffered a relapse in the fourth grade, just three months before he was supposed to stop the chemotherapy. Doctors gave him a 20 percent chance of surviving the relapse. This time, treatment included radiation.

Under the intensified chemotherapy, Greiling lost his hair. Embarrassed, he often stayed at home, playing pool and hiding from the world. He wore baseball caps of his favorite teams - the Milwaukee Brewers and Cincinnati Reds - to hide his bare scalp.

Greiling's hats came off for good a few weeks later after the Mill Creek Stars won the fourth-grade basketball championship.

"I had played pretty well and took the hat off after the game without even thinking and threw it up in the air," he said. `Everybody in the gym around me went quiet. I was embarrassed at first, but from then on, I forgot the hat because I realized I had no reason to regret what had happened to me."

After that, the only thing that adorned his bald head were the smiley faces his mother often painted on the back of his head.

He hasn't had chemotherapy since sixth grade.

"You're never 100 percent cured," Greiling said. "But after five years, the chances of another relapse are really low."

The fighter

Greiling never missed a game throughout his battle with cancer unless he was hospitalized. His fight against leukemia shaped him into a competitor as a young boy, and pushed him to excel as a young man in high school.

"If I didn't fight that, then I would be dead. There were no options," Greiling said. "It made me see things in a way of what needs to be done, so I always progress instead of regress."

Ask any of Greiling's coaches and they will tell you he is the kind of athlete you want on your team. A natural leader. A hard worker. A team player.

Teammates feel the same way.

Williams, who played on Jackson's football team with Greiling last fall, describes Greiling as a goofy wiseguy off the field whose

intensity transforms him when he competes.

"Anything he does, he works as hard as he can," Williams said. "I think he just wants to make more of his life because he knew it could just go away any second."

As a 5-foot-11, 185-pound lineman, Greiling had 12 tackles in several games, and his return of a fumble recovery made him the first defensive tackle to score a touchdown in Jackson's three-year history.

As a wrestler, Greiling qualified for the Class AA state tournament in March, where he won one match at 190 pounds. He finished with a 24-12 record.

Greiling worked equally hard as an honorable mention All-Western AA Conference catcher last season, hitting .286. This season, Greiling hit .327 with 18 runs batted in and 12 doubles, with a .982 fielding percentage in 20 games. Greiling also calls every pitch, and Jackson's earned-run average is 2.06.

"He's hard-nosed and he's got a great desire to win," said Dave Rose, the Monroe baseball coach. "He's always fired up and doesn't let down when it gets tough. He's the kind of kid you want on your team."

Living for the day

Greiling has spent many days in recent years visiting children living with cancer, brain tumors and other life-threatening conditions. Whether meeting them at the hospital or traveling to their home, each visit has had lasting effects.

"Seeing them fight makes me grateful for where I am, and it puts my life into perspective, because I know some of them might not make it," Greiling said. "I've learned that you can't take anything for granted, and that you have to live for the day."

After he graduates, Greiling will head to the University of Washington. Unsure of a major, he might pursue a career in cancer research.

In 11 years, Greiling has learned so much, learned to overcome the obstacles life has presented him. He survived cancer, lived with chemotherapy and fought off the radiation.

"Cancer is a treatment roller coaster," said his father. "You have your ups and downs, your twists and turns, and you don't know when or where the ride is going to end."

And despite the rocky start, Steve Greiling's ride is just beginning.