Martial arts guru duels tough opponent: cancer
For many people, a trip to Hawaii is a once-in-a-lifetime experience they will never forget. Witnessing the culture, tasting new exotic food and getting the perfect tan while on the beach is on most tourists’ minds.
For Scott Elliott, Brazilian Jui Jitsu and Muay Thai kickboxing instructor at Eastern, the vacation was one he will never forget, but for a different reason. While there, five moles on his back began to change shape and color.
All of them were removed, and they came back benign but, when a few years later another one appeared inside the scar left from the previous moles. He didn’t think about it because the moles already removed from that same spot weren’t cancerous, Elliott said. In martial arts, with the contact of skin on the mat or submission holds on each other, it isn’t abnormal for skin to be squeezed or pinched and made to bleed, he said.
In August 2006 a visit with doctors found the mole was, in fact, malignant and needed to be removed quickly. The removal left a 6-7 inch football shaped scar on the left side of this back.
“If I had went immediately when it came back, maybe I wouldn’t be going through all this now,” Elliott said.
Doctors tested his lymph nodes, ran PET and CAT scans, but found no tumors anywhere else in his body. Chemical treatment was started immediately and Elliott found himself traveling to Central Baptist hospital five days a week for a month to receive IV injections through a tube inserted into his arm, up to his shoulder and down into his chest.
Soon afterwards doctors prescribed shots he could give to himself in the stomach. Those are the days he dreads, Elliott said. The medicine causes a whole list of nasty side effects, such as nausea, hair loss, weight loss, depression and mood swings, to name a few, he said.
“It makes you feel like you’ve got a really bad flu,” Elliott said.
During his ordeal, his friends and family were very supportive; his instructors helped keep the gym, the Academy of Martial Arts and Fitness, open while his girlfriend helped keep him grounded, he said.
The doctors credit his strong path to recovery on his physical conditioning from his years of martial arts training and the military, where he was a drill instructor for two years. But it wasn’t just being physically fit that helped, because cancer can affect you in other ways too, he said.
Many people aren’t equipped to handle the mental stress cancer creates. A lot of people don’t die directly from the cancer but from the stress and side effects, like depression, from the medication and chemotherapy, Elliott said.
After a year of treatment, doctors are ready to stop the three-day-a-week shots in December and will begin monitoring him for any reoccurrence. Elliott is ready to get on with his training and get back into the martial arts ring as soon as he’s fit, he said.
“Martial arts makes you healthy and fit, but also makes you strong mentally,” Elliott said. “It’s a lot like having a warrior mind set. You have to have that survivor attitude.”
No able to quickly find exactly where he teaches, but it is in Kentucky somewhere.
Tough battle, hope he stays cancer free.