AURORA — Long before cancer confronted Kyle MacIntosh with hurdles far tougher than any he found running track for the University of Colorado, Shaw Gifford recognized in him the kind of personality that instantly made people feel as if he was their new best friend.
MacIntosh had that effect on Gifford when they met at his first team dinner with the Buffs, two years before MacIntosh fell victim to a rare pediatric bone cancer and became an inspiration by continuing to train for the 400-meter hurdles while undergoing chemotherapy.
“Kyle has a type of personality, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime,” said Gifford, a senior sprinter who ran on relays with MacIntosh. “Every single day, he is nice to everyone. It’s a trait I’ve always envied about him. He’s never down, no matter what he’s facing, even before cancer. If he was having a bad day, it was hard to tell.”
A month ago, the 23-year-old MacIntosh appeared to be winning his year-long cancer battle. He was excited about rejoining the team this month, fully expecting to run outdoor track this spring.
The day after Christmas, his story took another tragic turn.
“Kyle was feeling fantastic,” said his father, Bill. “Kyle worked out every day. He was feeling like 100 percent over Christmas. The day after Christmas, he woke me up and said: ‘Dad, my head is killing me. Something’s not right.’ Then he started vomiting. We threw him in the car, came up to Children’s (Hospital), and when we got to Colfax he was unconscious.”
In surgery, doctors found two brain tumors. One had caused a brain hemorrhage.
“He’s never woken up from the surgery,” Bill said Thursday while keeping vigil along with his wife, daughter and several of Kyle’s teammates.
“Honorary brother”
MacIntosh won the Colorado Class 5A 300-meter hurdles title for Littleton High School in 2009, and a year later he was part of a 400-meter relay team at CU that qualified for the NCAA championships.
MacIntosh’s primary event was the 400-meter hurdles, considered by many the most grueling event in track.
“As soon as he got here, the first thing I noticed, he was a very fierce competitor,” said CU sprint coach Drew Morano. “He had a way of blocking everything out and really getting into a race, having great focus. He could be laughing, and 10 seconds later he could step on the line and do a great rep in practice. He just had a way to zone in and focus and go after it.
“He was one of those people you loved to have on your team. Everybody wanted to be his friend.”
Gifford urged his coaches to let MacIntosh run the anchor leg of their relays.
“Because he’s always had that strength and that fight,” said Gifford, a Chatfield graduate. “He’s a guy that never gives up.”
For the past two weeks, Kyle’s teammates, past and present, have gathered daily in the waiting area near his third-floor room in the pediatric intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital Colorado. They hang out for hours hoping to spend some time with him, maybe elicit a response. Family members say Kyle doesn’t respond to doctors, but there is a flicker of awareness when teammates are present.
“He’ll be somewhat responsive, where his eyes will open,” said Kyle’s sister, Kendra. “Past few days, the kids will show him videos. His eyes are tracking the videos and kind of watching. He’s starting to get a little bit of response. The doctors are going to start working with him on blinking. Right now it’s like blink on command. We’re trying to get him to: one blink for yes and two for no.”
On Friday, his condition was upgraded to “serious but stable,” and he was moved out of intensive care.
Never quit working out
He thought it was a running injury, except it didn’t act like one. He was having pain in his tailbone in December 2013, but it didn’t hurt when he ran. It hurt when he sat or lay in bed.
A CU athletic trainer recommended an MRI, which detected a mass the size of a grapefruit in his pelvic area. A biopsy identified it as Ewing’s sarcoma, which strikes about 250 people per year in the U.S., most of them young. The cancer had spread to his lungs. He had his first chemotherapy treatment on New Year’s Eve.
Initially, he responded well. Six rounds of heavy chemo reduced the mass to the size of a berry, which was treated with radiation. Tumors in his lungs shrank, leaving two small ones, and he had surgery to remove the lower lobe of his right lung.
But soon the cancer came back. Doctors tried new forms of chemo, but to no avail.
Kendra, who is 11 years older than her brother, found a specialist in North Carolina who set him up with a clinical trial for experimental immunotherapy. Six tumors were removed from his lungs, and from them doctors created a vaccine specific to his cancer. He resumed training with a defiant attitude, intent on running again.
“People said: ‘How does Kyle feel so good? How does he do it through chemo and radiation and lung surgery?’ ” said his father. “Kyle said, ‘I earned the right to feel good, because I work out every day after chemo.’ He just never quit working out. He was going to get back on the track. Cancer is a thief. It takes many things from you, but it wasn’t going to take that from Kyle, the thing he loved.”
Kyle even tried to look at the bright side of having cancer.
Said Kendra: “His approach was: ‘I’m so happy this is happening to me at 22 years old. It’s just going to change me and make me a better person. I’d rather get it now than at 65. It’s going to allow me to have so much more knowledge and a better outlook on life.’ “
The influence of his outlook finds witness in the large group of friends who show up every day at the hospital. One day there were 29 of them.
“It’s a testament of their love for Kyle and what Kyle’s done for them,” Kendra said.
Nurses have noticed his vital signs improve when friends are present.
“The doctors say, ‘We can’t get him to open his eyes,’ ” Bill said. “I say, ‘Come when the kids are here and you’ll see his eyes open.’ “
Kyle’s parents and sister remain at the hospital around the clock.
“We sleep here, eat here,” said Kyle’s mother, Nancy. “They help us, those kids. They are just unbelievable.”
John Meyer: 303-954-1616, jmeyer@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johnmeyer
Helping Kyle MacIntosh
Friends have set up a titled K-Mac Strength (gofundme.com). In its first five days, more than $40,000 was raised.
