Jason Bercot has no complaints. Not about having to overcome a rare form of cancer. Not about missing the fanfare of everyone moving away to college while he underwent emergency surgery. Not even about his partially removed lung, diaphragm controls and heart lining.
He’s just thankful for the chance to use his new lease on life to make a difference.
It all began 17 years ago, the summer after Bercot graduated from high school, when he started to complain of not feeling well. At first, he thought it was pneumonia but when the symptoms of chest pain, breathing problems, cough and fever persisted, he was taken to the nearest hospital where chest X-rays revealed a shadow on his lungs the size of a grapefruit. Soon thereafter, Bercot was diagnosed with germ cell cancer.
“The mass had attached to my lung, wrapped around my heart and grown across the controls for half my diaphragm. In a little over a week, they look me into surgery to remove half my left lung, some of the lining around my heart and some of my diaphragm controls and then they checked all my lymph nodes,” says Bercot. “They told me before I went under that I’d either wake up feeling fine or literally feeling like there was a big weight off my chest.”
He woke up feeling the latter, but Bercot says that might have just been the morphine kicking in. This was just at the foothill of his medicinal trail, though, because Bercot then underwent six months of post-surgery chemotherapy.
“I didn’t really feel well during that time,” Bercot recalls. “I lost about 35 pounds, all my hair fell out, and I was really worn down.”
But although times were tough, Bercot says he never asked, “Why me?” He just knew he had to get through it.
Bercot’s condition was rare, according to Raja Flores, MD, assistant professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the New York City-based Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. While germ cell is normally a kind of testicular cancer, he says, 5 percent of germ cell tumors occur primarily in the chest.
“Embryologically, germinal epithelium develops in the yolk sac then undergoes a midline migration down the dorsal mesentery of the hindgut to the urogenital ridge then into the scrotum to form the testes,” Flores explains. “Anywhere along this path germ cells can be deposited in the anterior mediastinum and/or retroperitoneum and, eventually, undergo malignant degeneration.”
Dawn Light, MD, MPH, with the Dayton, Ohio-based Children's Medical Center of Dayton says primary germ cell tumors of the mediastinum are more common in females than males (ratio of 1.5 to 1) and are often seen in young adults ages 20 to 40.
According to Light’s recent research, these tumors are most often benign, but the malignant form occurs about 15 percent of the time and is more common in males.
“These can be very aggressive tumors with a poorer prognosis,” Light adds. “Especially with invasion of the superior vena cava.”
Typically, CT scans can pick up these abnormalities, says Uzair B. Chaudhary, MD, faculty member of the Medical University of South Carolina's division of hematology/oncology. But recently, he adds, PET scans are being used for imaging germ cell tumors.
In Bercot’s case, his surgery, treatments and recovery proved lucrative as he’s been living a cancer-free life ever since. Bercot is now a service technician for Silverdale, Wash.-based Quality Heating and Air Conditioning and an active outdoorsman with hobbies like wakeboarding and fishing.
As most Seattle residents do, Bercot always looked out upon the commanding peak of Washington's most prominent landmark, Mount Rainier, and appreciated its beauty, but never entertained the thought of scaling 14,410 feet to its ice-encrusted summit.
Since his surgery, he had always wanted to say “thank you” in some way to those who helped him survive cancer. It wasn’t until he read the book, Touching the Void (Vintage, 1998), that he realized how to show his immense thankfulness properly.
The inspirational novel painted a vivid picture of two men’s ascent to the 21,000-foot Siula Grande peak in the Peruvian Andes. Bercot related to how the characters were faced with overwhelming difficulties and the psychological traumas that resulted, but he yearned to relate to them even more.
“After reading the book I started to look at [Mount Rainier] and think, ‘That would be pretty cool to climb,’” explains Bercot. “So, one day I was poking around on the computer and came across the Climb for Clean Air. I thought it was a great way to raise money and accomplish something.”
The Climb For Clean Air is a fundraising event, supporting the American Lung Association of Washington. Each climber is required to raise a minimum of $3,500 to qualify for a summit attempt of Mt. Rainier, and the funds support statewide Lung Association programs.
Bercot immediately signed up to participate in the Climb for Clean Air.
“When I make my mind up to do something,” says Bercot. “I pretty much will do anything possible to accomplish it.”
And he did, too. He began by sending a fund-raising letter to friends, family and local businesses. Then the four-and-a-half months of daily exercise began. He trained for strength and endurance with weights, cycling, stair climbing and weekly hikes.
During his stair climbs and mountain hikes, he carried a backpack filled with weights. He increased the weights up to 40 pounds by the end of his training.
Bercot even worked on energy-saving breathing techniques. He says he could feel his lung capacity grow more each day.
“There were a lot of times where I didn’t want to get up at 4:30 a.m. to go to the gym and then work all day,” says Bercot. “But I immediately thought of all those people that were counting on me, donating money and really behind me. So, I realized I just had to do it.”
Turns out, Bercot’s supporters were really,
really behind him. He was able to raise $6,300 – more than double his goal.
Overall, 96 people signed up for the 2005 Climb for Clean Air and they raised about $400,000. But of the 96, only 18 made it to the summit. Bercot was one of them.
He recollects his journey to the top: “We started climbing at 9 a.m. [on July 16, 2005] and we got to our base camp at 2 p.m. where we ate, rested and drank a ton of water. We left base at 1 a.m. [on July 17, 2005], so we were climbing in the dark. But I started to get nauseous and dizzy, which is a sign of altitude sickness. It was too dangerous to stop, so I had to talk myself through it to push up to the break. I did a thing called pressure breathing and a rest step. If I would not have done that, I wouldn’t have made it. After that, I started to feel better but I was extremely fatigued and my throat hurt from the pressure breathing. At that point though, I had an overwhelming sense of, ‘Oh my God, I’m almost there!’ and it was pretty emotional. I kept thinking of how I overcame the cancer, how I trained so hard and all the people behind me. It’s tough to describe, but whatever it was, I felt even more of it when I actually reached the top.”
Reaching Mount Rainier’s summit marked the triumph of Bercot’s second major life hurtle. He says overcoming cancer and climbing Mount Rainer are, by far, the most challenging things he’s ever had to deal with.
And Bercot isn’t the only one proud of his accomplishments.
"He has such limited [lung] capacity, we didn't know if he'd make it. He's our Lance Armstrong," says Alma Lyons, Bercot's grandmother.
Bercot says he’s extremely thankful for his family and friends’ support through both cancer and training because he couldn’t have done it without them. As for his affinity for the American Lung Association, he says he couldn’t have picked a more worthy cause to give his thanks and helping hand to.
“The main reason why I chose to achieve this accomplishment through the American Lung Association is because I wanted to give back to those going through what I had to,” says Bercot. “I could have signed up to climb Mount Rainier through the guide service, but when I found out about this program, I knew I had to sign up. It was an unbelievable feeling to support such an awesome cause.”
Amy Storer is the editor of TherapyTimes.com. Questions or comments can be directed to editorial@TherapyTimes.com.
