Relay For Life Chairperson Proves Early Detection Makes Difference
Mahopac resident Mike Dacey doesn’t mind talking about his battle with testicular cancer. While others might be hesitant to discuss a sensitive topic, Dacey is open and relaxed when describing his experience.
The more someone talks about their own story, the more others will listen and in the future, it might actually save their life, he stresses. Dacey, who just finished his freshman year of college, was 16 when he got the news nobody ever wants to receive. But because of early detection, he’s fortunately now just another healthy, normal college kid; a normal college kid that will be this year’s Mahopac Relay For Life honorary chairperson that takes place next week at Mahopac High School, starting at 7 a.m. Saturday and ending 24 hours later.
“I talk about it all the time,” Dacey said of his cancer fight. “I just think it’s important to tell people because it’s not very known. My type of cancer is not very known and very, very common, which I didn’t know.”
Dacey is the kind of person that looks everything up online if he thinks something is wrong with him. He considers himself a “hypochondriac.”
“I still do that now,” Dacey said. “And just from what happened, I think it’s pretty understandable.”
When he discovered a possible cyst on his testicle, he googled “lumps on the testicle” and as usual with the Internet, a thousand different things popped up, including cancer. But as he went through the symptoms in more detail, they all matched with cancer. That’s when Dacey became concerned and called the urologist.
After getting it checked, it appeared cancer was the cause and he had emergency surgery two days later, removing the cancer-stricken areas. Yet, Dacey wasn’t out of the clear yet.
Doctors, after performing a CAT scan, saw there were lymph nodes in his stomach that were inflamed. Dacey went to Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City and another surgery — four hours long — was performed to prevent any potential spreading. Seventy abdominal lymph nodes were removed and all were found to be negative.
At that moment, Dacey was cancer free and has been for the last two years. He is monitored for ten years and as time goes on, the checkups become less frequent.
Overall, he had two surgeries and never went thought chemotherapy or radiation. From start to finish, his ordeal was roughly a month and a half.
“You’re 15, 16, you don’t think anything’s going to happen to you,” Dacey said. “And now after all this, you’re not invincible. Everyday you’ve got to live life, because you never know.”
Mike’s mother , Debra Dacey, said everything happened so quickly the family didn’t even have time to react. It was almost like operating without thinking about it, she said. But Dacey knows her family had the best possible scenario and others have had so much worse.
“I don’t think until everything happened it started to hit us,” Debra Dacey said. “It’s still something that you think of everyday, you can’t get away from it. Obviously, the further out we go, the better.”
Dacey was still up at school when Tracey Walsh, the community manager that helps run the impressive event each year, called him out of nowhere and asked him to be honorary chairperson. While she didn’t pressure him, she did stress he would be a perfect fit. Last year, Mahopac was one of the top fundraisers in the entire country.
He’s been involved in Relay For Life in the past, but since he was personally affected, it means much more to him and he’s ready to take on a bigger role this year.
“It was really exciting,” he said “I totally wanted to do it.”
Dacey is back home for a few months after spending his freshman year at the University of Hartford. Although there are sporadic checkups to ensure the cancer has stayed away, life is essentially back to normal, with Mike working a couple jobs over the summer and hanging with friends.
“The only difference is I’m all scarred up,” Dacey said, referring to the two scars from surgeries. “Which isn’t a big deal.”
