‘It can happen at any time in your life’

Published 9:33 am Friday, July 25, 2008

Cancer is something that can come to any person, at any age and at any time.

Freeborn County Relay for Life Honorary Co-chairman Chris Utz can attest to that.

On Jan. 22, 2006, when he was in his early 30s, Utz had an unwitnessed seizure.

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It was a Sunday night, and he said he didn’t feel well — but he didn’t know why.

He missed work for the next two days, then went back to work, even though he wasn’t quite feeling normal.

On Jan. 25, his wife, Tobi, took him into the hospital where he had a CT scan.

The results came back that he had a brain tumor: Grade three Anablastic Astrocytoma.

“It was really hard. My wife and I had a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old. He had just turned 1,” he said. “But we had great family support.”

On Feb. 1, he had surgery to remove the plum-sized cancerous tumor on his right frontal lobe. He started chemotherapy and radiation three weeks later.

Utz said he received 33 radiation treatments during a seven-week period and had chemotherapy over a six-month span.

For a while he went in to the hospital to be checked out every month, but now he goes in for an MRI every three months and meets with his oncologist regularly, he said.

Luckily since the treatment, he hasn’t had any flare-ups.

“It can happen at any time in your life,” Utz said. “I was in the prime of my life.”

He is sharing this story and a message of hope as one of this year’s honorary co-chairmen for the Freeborn County Relay for Life — a position he said he was honored to be appointed to. Being an honorary co-chairman is a position that brings a cancer survivor to the forefront of the public, showing that everyone is affected by cancer.

The other honorary co-chairwoman is Amy Wasson.

New to the relay this year is the position of honorary caregiver, which has been appointed to Beth Manges.

“Please come out and support the Relay for Life on Aug. 8,” Utz said. “Everyone’s been touched by cancer.”

His daughter, Erin, is now 5 and his son, Ryan, is 3. He’s been married for 10 years.

He is a physical therapist at HealthReach in Albert Lea.

Look for a story on Wasson and Manges in further additions of the Tribune.