The San Francisco 49ers are in a tight spot with only three days until their Super Bowl LVIII battle against the Kansas City Chiefs. But win or lose, Niners linebackers coach Johnny Holland is enjoying every moment.
“Sunday is a great day because it’s game day,” Holland told CBS News. “But, you know, I now realize that every day is a great day. It taught me a lot about seeing life from a fresh perspective.”
After experiencing shoulder and rib pain five years ago, Holland was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare and incurable blood cancer.
“Immediately, I started chemo treatment and went on every day, going to work every day and go get chemo once a week,” Holland told CBS News. “It probably took about six months to realize that, ‘this is pretty serious that you’re going through.'”
He is now a participant in a clinical trial at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, which is evaluating new medicines.
“Immunotherapy uses the body’s immune system to help fight cancer,” explained Samantha Shenoy, a nurse practitioner who is guiding Holland through each appointment. “To put it simply, one arm hooks to a cancer cell and the other to the body’s own T cells. So what it does is it basically boosts the body’s immune system, specifically its T cells, to help fight cancer.
“Patients living with myeloma live with a lot of uncertainty,” she said. “He faces that uncertainty with a really positive attitude.”
Also unexplained is why Black people account for one in every five new diagnoses, making Holland’s participation in the trial a game changer.
“It’s really important to have diversity within clinical trials so we can help answer some of these questions,” she said.
