Portsmouth High football coach's biggest foe is not on the field. He's battling cancer.
PORTSMOUTH – As far as Keith MacDonald is concerned, it's full speed ahead as Portsmouth High School football coach.
True, full speed, at least for now, isn't quite what it used to be. MacDonald, 58, is battling myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells, and the draining effects of chemotherapy. But he's not backing off helping his Patriots get ready for their weekly gridiron battles.
At his first visit with his oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston last spring, MacDonald feared he might not get the OK to coach, a frightening prospect. Dr. Monique A. Hartley-Brown put that fear to rest.
“She said, 'You need the distraction. You need the kids around you,'” MacDonald said.
McDonald has happily followed orders.
There are the occasional sit-down breaks, the need to delegate more authority than usual to his young coaching staff that includes his sons Kyle, 25, and Ryan, 25. For daytime practice or game, the more traditional baseball cap has been traded in for a bucket hat for the necessary sun protection. Everyone, it seems, urges MacDonald to stay hydrated. He said the community as a whole has been ultra supportive.
“The coaches have picked up the slack,” said MacDonald, an owner of R&R Construction, a family business in Newport. “They've taken a lot off my plate. They know I don't have the stamina. It's a young staff. They're making sure I take a drink.”
Portsmouth football team, community supporting their coach
MacDonald learned just how many people care, and how much they care, Wednesday morning when he posted on Facebook a big thank you to the oncology nurses at Newport Hospital's Lifespan Cancer Institute, where he is receiving his chemo treatments. He bought Portsmouth football shirts for all the nurses.
While his cancer diagnosis wasn't the best-kept secret before the Facebook post, MacDonald had not told too many folks about it. Immediate family. The school principal and athletics director. The district superintendent. Players. Players' parents. Some friends.
After the Facebook post, MacDonald's phone lit up. Word was out.
“I knew it would get out there eventually,” MacDonald said. “Now I don't have to worry about who knows, and who doesn't know.”
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The Patriots lost their first three games, but two of those losses were to Division 1 teams. “North Kingstown and Hendricken in the first three weeks,” MacDonald said. “That's trying in itself.”
How Coach MacDonald learned of his cancer diagnosis
A longtime assistant high school football coach on Aquidneck Island, MacDonald was named head coach last February. A month later, he got the diagnosis. It wasn't a mega surprise. For the past couple of years, he said, he had been feeling lethargic. Medical tests, he said, showed an elevated protein level in his blood, not a good sign. The level kept climbing. Worse sign.
Then came the word last spring. Myeloma, formerly known as multiple myeloma. The incurable disease strikes white blood cells which normally make antibodies.
MacDonald, a Portsmouth resident, at first ignored his family's urgings to go to Boston for evaluation. But after noticing Fenway Park's Jimmy Fund sign during a Red Sox broadcast, he decided why not. He went to the computer and sent his info along, not expecting to hear anything anytime soon, if at all.
That was a Sunday night. Dana Farber contacted him Monday morning and had him on site for an appointment on Wednesday.
MacDonald said Hartley-Brown is truly a myeloma specialist, one of 15 on staff at Dana Farber. “That's all she does,” he emphasized.
Balancing coaching and his cancer treatments
Hartley-Brown gave the OK for her prescribed chemo treatments to be administered at Newport Hospital. His Newport oncologist is Randall Ingham. MacDonald said Hartley-Brown told him that medical science is getting close to a cure for myeloma, perhaps within a few years.
He said Dana Farber “is like a well-oiled machine, and the people down here (Newport) are great, too,” MacDonald said.
MacDonald has been undergoing chemo for 16 weeks, with two more scheduled. The plan is to give his body a month off from the toxic medicine before a scheduled three-day stem cell harvesting starting on Nov. 13.
For the MacDonalds, laughter is the best medicine
In the nearer future, in addition to football, the MacDonalds this weekend are set to pack into a van to visit daughter Olivia, 19, for family weekend at the University of New Hampshire. MacDonald has been told explicitly that he is not driving.
The MacDonald clan, he said, has been quite a boon during this huge health challenge. He said his wife, Stacie, is the inquisitor, asking about every step of treatment, wanting to know everything about everything. MacDonald said he's just a no-questions-asked “pin cushion.”
He is all about being as upbeat as possible, a true believer in laughter being the best medicine. Those genes were passed down. MacDonald said on the April day when the cancer news was broken to his children, they immediately assumed a let's-beat-it attitude and actually had Mom and Dad laughing. MacDonald said the children reasoned now the family has an easy out – MacDonald's fatigue – when wanting to bolt early from an extended-family event.
The MacDonald war against cancer definitely involves an upbeat attitude.
“Oh yeah,” MacDonald said. “If I don't go after this in a positive way, I'm dead in the water.”
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Portsmouth High football coach Keith MacDonald battling myeloma
