Living Life
GETTING OFF A LAST SHOT
AT LIVING LARGE
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A MAN STOOD ON THE NORTHERN-MOST TIP OF AN HAWAIIAN ISLAND – THE ‘BIG ISLAND’ – A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO, TEETERING ON THE EDGE OF A SHARP CLIFF ABOVE THE OCEAN, HOLDING A GIANT GOURD ABOVE HIS HEAD, CAPTURING THE WIND INSIDE OF IT. Then he rented a villa 90 miles south of Florence, Italy, where he drank wine and sat around at night telling stories with his children. Then the same man sat in front of a computer and wrote me an e-mail because he needed to know when Trail Blazers reserve guard Dan Dickau would play next. What, you expected a trip to the Egyptian Pyramids on Christmas? I explained to the man I didn’t coach the team or make the substitutions. I only wrote columns about it. This didn’t satisfy him, so he wrote back, asking again. And again. And finally, I had to ask, “What’s the deal with Dickau?” And the man replied, “I’m dying.” Jeffrey Werner is a cardiologist. He’s married to a woman named Lori, and he has two sons (Jeremy and Daniel), and a stepdaughter (MacKenzi), and he lives in Southeast Portland with a view of Happy Valley and a giant barbecue grill on the back deck. Dickau is important to his story, but first we need to visit 2002, when the cardiologist, a nonsmoker who watched what he was eating, began suffering from a nagging cough. There was a doctor’s visit and a routine X-ray of his lungs. And something looked wrong. “Adenocarcinoma,” a specialist told him. Lung cancer. Surgeons removed the upper-right lobe of Werner’s lungs and told him to go home and feel better. They said that he probably would be fine. And Werner, who also practiced medicine in Washington and Arkansas during his career, did just that, eventually returning to work in the cardiology department at Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Center in Portland. “Then, it came back,” Werner said. Another surgery? “Not possible,” doctors told him, “too many tumors.” Radiation? “Can’t do it it causes too much damage to the lungs.” So Werner was given six months to live, and maybe with a round of chemotherapy that could be stretched to eight to 12 months. Chemotherapy, yes. This was Werner’s sole option, or so it seemed, until you learn that a Western doctor, an educated man who holds a beating human heart in his hands as part of his occupation, weighed his own heart and decided instead that he would do nothing. BUT LIVE Werner hugged his wife, and cried with his children, and then he made a list of things that he wanted to accomplish. The end of his life story would be one of living, not dying. The wind gourd. The villa. Dickau. Dickau? It turns out that Werner, who is 5-foot-6 and a self-described “non-athlete,” can relate to the work ethic and gifts that Dickau developed as a gym rat. Werner, who had a private practice in Redmond, Wash., for 17 years, followed the guard’s college career at Gonzaga. And so this is how “Seeing Dan Dickau make a three-point shot” ended up on the list of things that a 60-year-old man wanted to see before he died. Werner bought tickets and went to a couple of Blazers games, where he saw Dickau sit on the bench. Once, on television, he narrowly missed a Dickau appearance. And so after a few months and no Dickau, and time running out, Werner decided he’d better do something. When Blazers coach Nate McMillan was told about Werner’s wish to see Dickau make a three-point shot, the coach said, “He’d better come to practice.” This is how Werner ended up standing in the far corner of the Blazers’ practice facility in Tualatin, walking toward Dickau, who happened to be standing behind the three-point arc, holding a basketball. |
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To read his Web log, go to Catch him on the radio
on The
Oregonian
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By JOHN CANZANO:
503-294-5065