June 14, 2004 UPDATE

Name:     MikeyoCancerfund
Email:    MikeyoCancerfund@aol.com
Comments: Mikey O Beating the Odds

By BARBARA WILLIAMS

Doctors told Michael O'Loughlin he had a year to live. That was 14 months ago, and the middle of May saw him riding his motorcycle to PBA meetings and taking his two small boys to a local circus with his wife.
"They were wrong before, and I'm betting they'll be wrong again," O'Loughlin said. "I'm going to be around for a long time."
O'Loughlin, 37, known to friends as "Mikey O" is a Cresskill police sergeant who was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer in March 2003. Although he has undergone radical, painful, and invasive treatments, most who know him say he's beating his prognosis through sheer willpower.
"Before he got sick, Mickey was always upbeat, making jokes," said fellow officer and close friend, Jeremy Luciano. "That hasn't changed, he still maintains that positive attitude. I think all of this has just made him stronger."
O'Loughlin's life this past year was enough to break the spirit of even the most optimistic of patients. But O'Loughlin says he has no choice but to fight. Giving up is not an option. Thankfully, he doesn't remember some of the more horrific times, his wife, Mary Catherine, said.
"While going through chemo, he had to be hospitalized a number of times, but he doesn't remember a lot of that because of the drugs," Mary Catherine said. "He also doesn't remember hallucinating after surgery."
The past 14 months were filled with chemotherapy treatments topped off with a 12-hour surgery procedure that nearly killed him. The operation, performed in Washington D.C., is performed on very few patients, and O'Loughlin waited months to hear if he qualified for it.
Doctors removed his peritoneum (lining of the abdominal cavity), which included the protective covering of his lungs and other vital organs. The procedure is so intricate, after only three hours into it, doctors told Mary Catherine that they didn't think he was going to make it. They were going to sew him back up and let nature take its course.
"When they started the operation, they expected to find a small number of tumors after the year of chemotherapy, but they found over 200," Mary Catherine said. "They were in his bladder, colon, kidneys, liver, appendix, everywhere - you name it. But the good news was that even though they were in the lining of his lungs, the inside of his lungs were clear."
Miraculously, once the horrible news was delivered to Mary Catherine, O'Loughlin's vital signs were so strong that the doctors decided to continue with the operation. That decision has given him a fighting chance.
"I'm so glad they went back in," O'Loughlin said. "Cause here I am today, riding my bike, doing more things than I have in a while, and getting stronger."
Getting through the surgery was only a part of the battle, though. Soon after the procedure, O'Loughlin was pumped full of chemo through I.V.'s in the sides of his body.
"They would put this stuff in, and then roll me over every half hour for it to wash over all of my tissues and organs," O'Loughlin said. "I was like a chicken on a rotisserie. And it was painful - here it was hard for me to even sit up and they made me help in rolling myself over."
O'Loughlin was in Washington Medical Center for four weeks, where doctors said the operation could prolong his life by a year, possibly longer. O'Loughlin is positive the time will be longer, but Mary Catherine is just as concerned about the quality of that time as the quantity.

"He's had a really rough year," Mary Catherine said. "At first I just wanted him around as long as possible so his boys would know him, but now I want him to be able to really enjoy the time."
The O'Loughlins have two boys, ages five and three. In addition to taking care of them, helping her husband through his various treatments, and working as a special education teacher, she is now taking on her insurance company, Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
"They said this last procedure was the equivalent of 15 separate surgeries, so they're paying 80 percent for the initial portion, and only 50 percent on the remaining other 14 parts of it," Mary Catherine said. "I had to walk into the hospital with a check for $20,000 for them to even do the operation."
It is this type of problem, though, that has given purpose to the hundreds of people who have rallied to the family's plight. Fundraisers have been ongoing over the past year, sponsored by members of the police department as well as local residents.
"I never thought I would see 20 something guys come together for one cause," Luciano said. "But everyone in the department has done that, and they continue to do it. That doesn't count what we're getting from people we don't even know.
"I received checks from people in Arizona, Louisiana, retired cops or just people reading about Mikey on his website," Luciano said.
The support from family, friends, the department, and the community at large is what keeps the O'Loughlin family going, Mary Catherine said.
"It's outrageous, knowing I can just make one phone call and this whole chain gets started immediately," she said. "I know we still have a long road ahead, and this is what gets me through,"
O'Loughlin still faces an as-of-yet undetermined course of chemotherapy. But he has put it off until after the family takes a much-needed vacation in North Carolina this summer.
"Last year when I went, I had a reaction to the chemo so I couldn't touch anything cold or be in direct sunlight," O'Loughlin said. "That really affects what you can do at the beach.
"This year will just be fun and relaxing, and I can't wait. I'll deal with the chemo when I get back, but the way I'm feeling, nothing's slowing me down."
To send donations, or for updates on O'Loughlin's progress, you can check his website: http://www.members.cox.net/mikeyocancerfund.

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