Cedar Cliff valedictorian: 'I have cancer, but I wouldn't let it ...

As impressive as it is, Nick Pantalone?s high school resume isn?t what sets him apart.

It?s not his Boy Scout merit badges, his student council presidency, his Drama Club credits or even his status as Cedar Cliff High?s 2011 class valedictorian that define him.

It?s the fact that Nick Pantalone will stand before the 280 members of his supportive high school class and defiantly declare that through it all, his illness has never changed him.

Not one bit.

Yet, in a strange way, Nick?s cancer has helped define and clarify his future.

This has nothing to do with the chemotherapy he still undergoes ? five straight, grueling days of it every third week ? or the long, painstaking surgeries that he likely still faces.

Rather, it?s the career he has chosen for himself.

A lifelong lover of roller coasters and a multiyear summer employee at Hersheypark, Nick only settled upon a career managing theme parks following his March 2010 diagnosis.

That?s because through all the chemo, the hair loss, the shedding of weight, Hersheypark was the one place Nick still felt normal.

When he was manning one of the park?s roller coasters that are his passion, he was no longer the kid with cancer.

All those amusement park thrill seekers keep their wide eyes trained on those whooshing, roaring coasters and the delighted, screaming riders. They never seemed to notice Nick was sick.

?People don?t see you,? Nick says with the astonishment of someone so used to being on stage, in the spotlight, under the microscope. ?No one there knew anything that was going on.?

So the park became his comfort zone, his cancer-free fortress separate from the rest of his word. It was the one place where everyone was smiling and happy. And it was the place Nick could smile, too.

No wonder Nick wants to make such a grand and magical place his office. He wants to go to work where the happy people are.

Or, as Nick puts it: The roller coaster of his cancer only confirmed that his future career path should involve roller coasters.

To accomplish this, he?ll start at Lebanon Valley College this fall, then transfer to the University of Central Florida as soon as he completes his cancer treatments.

?I want to love to come to work everyday,? Nick says.

When you?re 18 and the entire world is opening before you, it?s a rare thing indeed to be so confident of your future, your life?s work.

Nick is. He?s found his passion.

?Strongest person I ever met?

It wasn?t always this way.

For a while, Nick was the odd sibling out in an all-varsity family.

His father, an ex-English teacher-turned-Lebanon Valley College assistant football coach, likes to say he raised four jocks ? and Nick.

But the baby of the family with a penchant for the arts instead of the gridiron turned out to be the toughest of them all. ?He was going to be himself,? Vince Pantalone says of his son. ?He was going to be his own person. And he?s the strongest person I ever met.?

It all started when Nick was hit by a bus ? literally. He wasn?t run over. But he was squeezed good and hard between a chain-link fence and the big, yellow broadside of a school bus, right in front of Cedar Cliff High School one February morning.

Thankfully, Nick seemed no worse for the mishap. The school nurse checked him out. His parents breathed relief. His friends laughed when he told the story.

Yet, around this same time, the typically-slender Nick was noticing a little extra padding around his midsection. Something wasn?t right. Better to get it checked out.

Typically, CT scan results take a day or so. Nick?s doctor called back in less than an hour. The news wasn?t good.

Nick was still off at one of his many extracurricular activities. When he finally returned home, he stepped into a different house.

His typically upbeat parents were drawn and subdued. They told him to sit down.

Then, they uttered the words no teenager deserves to hear. They talked of tumors, dozens and dozens of them, all throughout Nick?s abdomen and pelvis.

The doctor thinks it?s cancer, they said.

After more tests, a very rare form of cancer indeed ? desmoplastic small round cell tumors.

Stage IV.

There is no Stage V.

?It?s one of those rare ones that no one?s heard of,? Nick says of his disease.

Nick just calls them the ?bad blobs.?

That?s what they look like on the medical scans ? scores of small, squishy tumors peppered throughout his midsection. ?Too many to count,? he says. ?I was just in disbelief.?

Almost immediately, he began a course of chemo.

And Nick kept right on rehearsing for every one of his multiple parts in the school?s production of ?Beauty and the Beast? that spring.

The show must go on.

He refuses to slow down

A mother with a house full of varsity athletes is accustomed to her share of broken bones, strained ligaments and sprained ankles.

But not this. Not from the son who?s never sick. The boy who didn?t go in for football. The one who never needed so much as a single dose of antibiotic.

Not Nick.

?It blew us away,? says Carla Pantalone, still prone to tears.

Nick?s football coach of a father had finally accepted that his youngest son wasn?t going to follow his siblings? sports paths. But Vince couldn?t, wouldn?t accept this.

Kids don?t deserve this. Nick doesn?t deserve cancer.

The coach who treats his body like a temple would have given anything to change places with his son. ?This is supposed to happen to a guy my age, not someone whose whole life is in front of him,? Vince insists.

But there was no changing this.

Nick?s metaphorical roller coaster was locked on course, and this was the stomach-turning, fear-inducing downward plummet of his ride.

That spring and summer, course after course of chemo claimed Nick?s hair. His weight plunged to a skeletal 116 pounds. He?d retch at the slightest whiff of coffee. His parents took to brewing their morning joe in the garage.

?I looked anorexic,? recalls Nick, who?s since regained the weight ? and his hair.

Worse still, the custom-made chemo cocktail wasn?t working. It wasn?t shrinking the tumors.

Nick underwent surgery that August.

A top-notch New York City surgical team labored for eight straight hours, but they still couldn?t remove all of those ?bad blobs? inside Nick?s body.

That semester, he missed more than 30 days of school.

Still, Nick Pantalone never scaled back a single one of his extracurricular activities.

Teachers took to wearing ribbons, buttons and, later, colorful rubber bracelets, a la Lance Armstrong, all in Nick?s honor.

Soon, his Cedar Cliff classmates and college-student strangers at LVC were organizing fundraisers for him.

And if he ever felt down, Nick took refuge in the Disney and Pixar movies he adores.

For inspiration, he adopted the life-affirming mantra from the downtrodden robot in ?WALL-E?: ?I don?t want to survive. I want to live!?

?Nick, you are still you?

Nick is living. And then some.

If anything, the cancer has made him even more popular. He always gravitated toward drama and acting, but now he is best known for the details of his own life.

This wasn?t a character; this was him. Having his illness out there in public was freeing. There was no more pretense. He could be 100 percent real.

So, when the visiting nurse comes knocking at his Lower Allen Twp. home to administer the latest course of his chemo, there?s no reason to break up the study session or adjourn whatever extracurricular meeting he?s holding.

Nick simply doffs his shirt so the nurse can stick the needle into the intravenous port that?s been surgically implanted under the skin of his chest.

Nick has nothing to hide. Not even the long, zigzag scar from his surgery that crisscrosses his midsection. The jagged incision plunges diagonally down from under his left armpit, then cuts back across his stomach.

His father compares it to a shark bite.

And as the chemicals slowly stream into his system, Nick goes on as if nothing?s amiss.

No use getting upset. It only adds to the nausea.

To escape, sometimes Nick takes out his laptop and downloads an episode of ?Glee.? He already has his nurse, Lisa Scott, hopelessly hooked on the show about a high school chorus prone to staging elaborate musical numbers.

Nick can relate.

Because if all the world?s a stage, Nick is giving his finest performance simply by staying true to himself.

?All my friends, they say, ?Nick, you are still you?,? he proudly states.

That simple feat in the face of such soul-shaking adversity happens to be this high-achieving valedictorian?s biggest accomplishment.

?I have cancer, but I wouldn?t let it change me,? Nick defiantly declares. ?No way.?

Source: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/05/cedar_cliff_valedictorian_i_ha.html

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