Cancer Won't Keep a Runner from the White Rock Marathon

Comments (0) By Richie Whitt Thursday, Dec 11 2008

Hopefully it will slow, or ideally halt, the mass' growth.

"I'd be lying if I said I haven't thought about my own mortality," Steve says. "I hope this is just a bump in the road. But I know my odds, and they're pretty grim. Some people get hit by a car out of nowhere. I may very well know the thing that's going to kill me. That's why I don't take a second for granted. I'm milking as much out of life as possible."

Courtesy of Tyra Damm

Steve Damm won'tbe running the White Rock Marathon this year, but he should be at the finish line with his kids, waiting for his wife to cross.

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Says Tyra, "We're realistic, but we're also praying for a miracle, a magic cure. He keeps being positive and talking with our kids about future milestones like holidays and birthdays and graduations we're all going to celebrate together. But we didn't think Steve would even make it to his 40th birthday [in November]. He's made it a year already. Every day we have him, we feel blessed."

Steve's next MRI is scheduled for January 8.

The Damms' outlook and attitude is truly inspiring. Unfathomable, really. Makes the rest of us self-absorbed schmucks feel entirely silly for obsessing about trivial things like the virtues of Rent on high-school drama stages or getting all indignant over Sean Avery's "sloppy seconds." Tyra is a columnist for The Dallas Morning News' Briefing—normally, within our Dallas Observer walls, considered a branch of the evil empire —but today her husband's transcendent tale supersedes petty rivalries.

Steve Damm won't be running The Rock on Sunday, or next year, or ever again.

But given his persistence and his family's positivism, don't bet against him being among the 12,000 runners, 100,000 spectators and 2,500 volunteers at the American Airlines Center finish line Sunday afternoon to hand out 130 yellow "See Spot Run" T-shirts and cheer on his runners.

"It's humbling. It tickles me that they're running in my name," Steve says. "But mostly I'm jealous. I wish I was running with them."

He still loves running.

Even when others have to do it for him.