Full of faith

MACS students had a special guest for chapel Friday morning, a major league baseball player

By Jodelle Greiner

MARSHALL

Dave Dravecky faced a bunch of MACS students who fired questions at him much the same way he used to fire baseballs in the major leagues.

Dravecky was in town to speak at Marshall Area Christian School's Promise Banquet Friday night, but he spent part of the morning in chapel, telling his story and answering questions from the kids.

The first question came from a boy who wanted to know how Dravecky could lose an arm, but still be alive.

"They took my arm so I could stay alive," said Dravecky, who's left arm and shoulder were amputated after he developed a tumor in the deltoid muscle. "I'd rather be alive with one arm than dead with two," he said, then corrected himself. "But if I was dead, I'd be with Jesus right now."

One child wanted to know about when he found out he had cancer.

Dravecky and his wife, Jan, thought he had a micro muscle tear and calcification, which is not uncommon for pitchers, because he had a lump in his pitching arm.

"When the doctor said cancer, it rocked our worlds," he said. He prayed right after the diagnosis, and it wasn't a real eloquent prayer, he admits. "God, whatever this is, give us the strength to deal with it," is what he said he prayed.

One girl asked if he could feel the lump, if it hurt?

"There was no pain," Dravecky said, "it just felt like a lump. It was just a hard mass. It was like bone that was in the form of a golf ball."

That "golf ball" was a desmoid tumor, which was benign. However, inside the desmoid tumor was an aggressive cancer called a fibro sarcoma.

One girl wanted Dravecky to confirm whether he'd had cancer twice - he had - then wanted to know if one was worse than the other. "It was the same cancer," Dravecky said.

"Did you get a fake arm?" was one question.

"No, because I like me the way I am and the only other person who has to like me is my wife," Dravecky said. He added later that a prosthetic arm would be purely cosmetic in his case and "If I couldn't have function, I didn't want it."

He added that Jan was watching their first grandson.

One child wanted to know if he had done everything with his left hand.

Yes, he was exclusively left-handed, Dravecky said, and had to learn to write again with his right hand. Later, when signing autographs, he said his signature is now very similar to what it was before he lost his arm, 18 years ago.

He was asked if it hurt when they removed his arm.

"It didn't hurt when they removed the arm," because they gave him a lot of drugs and put him to sleep, Dravecky said, but he does still have phantom pain. His "arm" feels like it is in the position of being held in a sling and his "hand" is frozen in the position in which he pitched the ball.

"You can't see the arm, but I can feel the arm," he said. He asked the kids if they knew what it felt like when they bumped their funny bone and their arm "buzzed." He said that was what his arm felt like, "all the time. My arm feels like it's in an air cast and it's getting tighter and tighter all the time."

One little girl asked where his arm is now.

Dravecky apologized to the parents, then told the child the doctors put it in a plastic bag and out on the street. After letting them think about that a few seconds, Dravecky told them what really happened.

"The doctors took the arm to the lab and researched it to learn more about the cancer to help others," Dravecky said, adding, "Good things come from bad."

"How do you drive?" he was asked.

"When the cell phone rings, with my knees," Dravecky answered. "They're making the cell phone laws because of me."

One child wanted to know when Dravecky came to know Jesus.

"Aug. 22, 1981. I say that day because that's when I made my public profession of faith and was baptized," he said. Like the MACS kids, he grew up in a Christian school and said one day when he was about 12 or 13, he came out of school and felt God's presence. That was the beginning of the journey that culminated that day in 1981, he said.

One child asked how he felt, getting that call to pitch after having the tumor removed the first time.

"I was really, really scared," Dravecky admitted, but "I was able to pitch eight strong innings.

He was asked if he had ever hit a home run.

"I hit one home run in the big leagues," in 1986, he said.

He was asked if he had any heros.

"Sandy Koufax and Vida Blue," Dravecky said. "I actually pitched against Vida Blue at the end of his career. I stank pitching that day, but I got a double off Vida Blue."

He was asked about his pitching strategy.

"Nolan Ryan struck out over 5,000 players, I struck out over 500," Dravecky said. "I wanted them to hit it where my players were - not where they weren't."