The face of cancer — and strength

My cousin Greg Fusco is, quite literally, the face of cancer.

He’s also the embodiment of courage.

As a baby, Greg lost his right eye to retinoblastoma. In high school, another cancer, olfactory neuroblastoma, stole his vision altogether.

Now, just a few weeks shy of his 28th birthday, yet another cancer has created a huge, oblong mass on the right side of his face that’s making it increasingly hard for him to talk, eat, sleep and even breathe.

On Monday, at Rush University Medical Center, surgeons will take the latest crack at attacking the tumor — the latest in a series of more than a half-dozen operations Greg has undergone in a little over a year.

This rare string of cancers has left my cousin — a former three-sport high school athlete — blind, bruised and scarred. Parts of muscles taken from his outer thighs and a shoulder are now implanted in his face, along with bone-replacing titanium mesh.

What cancer hasn’t claimed, though, is his attitude. He has remained positive in the face of this enormous adversity.

Haven’t seen Greg in a while? The conversation will be about you, not him.

Self-pity? There’s not a trace.

“He’s been a fighter,” says his father, Mike Fusco, my first cousin. “He makes it easy on us, to be honest.”

Crankiness? Somehow, he keeps it at bay.

During a pre-op visit at the hospital on the Near West Side, he shakes every doctor’s hand and every nurse’s hand. He answers each question asked of him, though in a muffled voice, like someone in the dentist’s chair. He’s exhausted and in pain, but he tries not to let that show.

“I’m doing pretty good,” he tells an internist.

But he also says: “This morning, I had a little trouble breathing. . . . And it’s getting a little bit harder to eat solid food.”

Ideally, Greg and his parents would have liked him to have been in the operating room days ago. But this next surgery is tricky and needs especially careful planning. A team of surgeons will attempt to cut off blood flow to the tumor before trying to remove as much of it as possible.

“I can’t wait for Monday,” says his mother, Desi Fusco. “It can’t happen fast enough.”

• • •

Gregory Michael Fusco was born Aug. 25, 1988. Diagnosed with bilateral retinoblastoma, he underwent surgery at just 10 months old to have his right eye removed. The doctors were able to save his left with radiation.

Greg got a glass eye. It didn’t slow him down. Growing up in Oak Lawn, his three sisters — two older, one younger — helped toughen him up. He grew up to play on the football, wrestling and baseball teams at Richards High School.

At 16 — a time when most teens are getting settled behind the wheel of the family car — Greg was playing cards with his younger sister, Laurie, during a family trip to Wisconsin. He suddenly began having trouble seeing the cards, then started seeing stars and then saw nothing: A tumor the size of a hacky sack ball had damaged his optic nerve, leaving him blind.

Greg never regained his sight, but, after nearly a year of chemotherapy, he regained his life.

He learned Braille, got his high-school diploma, attended community college and played on the Chicago Comets, a “beep baseball” team. He rebuilt his football physique, bench-pressing 285 pounds.

“The greatest reward is to be able to do things that everyone takes for granted,” he told the SouthtownStar newspaper for a 2008 story about his mastery of high-tech communication tools for the blind.

But four years ago, cancer returned, this time osteosarcoma. That led to a surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., in which doctors cut Greg from ear to ear across the top of his forehead to remove a large tumor.

After more chemotherapy, Greg again thought he was OK. Last spring, he applied for job training at The Chicago Lighthouse, hoping to get out into the working world.

Then, another osteosarcoma tumor emerged, and another cancer battle was on.

“To have three distinct kinds of tumors is exceedingly rare,” says Greg’s lead surgeon at Rush, Dr. Pete Batra.

Batra has managed more than 500 cases of sinus and skull tumors in his career.

“I have seen only about a half-dozen other patients in my career with the kind of story that Greg has,” he says.

• • •

Since last summer, Greg has undergone surgeries at Detroit Medical Center, Mayo Clinic, Northwestern Memorial Hospital and, most recently, at Rush. That operation helped enable him to walk down the aisle at his sister Angela’s wedding on July 23.

But, despite follow-up chemotherapy, the tumor persists. Monday’s operation is designed to be more aggressive.

A team of doctors will attempt to clot the large blood vessels feeding the tumor so they can “de-bulk” it much more than has been done in the past, though not completely, Batra says.

“Complete resection is likely not a realistic possibility here,” he says. “But removing as much of the tumor as we can safely will buy him time so he can explore other chemotherapy options. It also will relieve the pain, bleeding and severe blockage of the nose.”

The plan is also for Greg to get a titanium implant that will replicate the structure of his right cheekbone.

The struggle Greg has endured isn’t lost on his doctor, including his willingness to be interviewed and photographed for this story.

“Raising awareness about these types of things is very important if patients are willing,” Batra says. “That takes a really special someone.”

• • •

After he went blind, Greg took to wearing designer sunglasses, like Oakleys and Arnettes. These days, he also wears a surgical mask that covers most of his face to limit his risk of infection.

I thought Greg might not want to be photographed, especially with the mask off. But when the camera came out and began clicking away, neither he nor his parents flinched.

The pictures show the face of cancer.

The people in them show strength and hope.

THE CANCERS GREG FUSCO HAS FACED

• Retinoblastoma — The eye cancer that Greg Fusco, 27, battled when he was a baby is a rare cancer, with about 200 to 300 cases a year diagnosed in the United States. It usually occurs in children under 5.
• Neuroblastoma — The summer before his junior year in high school, Greg was diagnosed with this cancer that attacks certain nerve tissues. It damaged his optic nerve, leaving him blind.
• Osteosarcoma — In 2012, he was diagnosed with this bone cancer, which led to a large tumor in his skull. That cancer has now returned, causing an oblong tumor on the right side of his face.

SOURCES: National Cancer Institute, Sun-Times interviews