Cancer treatment took Gary Piontak from an athlete who completed a marathon and triathlons to a man so exhausted he once fell asleep on his living room carpet because walking across the room was too difficult.
“I laid down and just let gravity do its thing, no pillow,” he says. “It’s a good thing nobody looked in the window.”
That grueling treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma also brought him where he is today: Back to running and swimming, biking 32 miles at a time and celebrating two years since he went into remission.
“I’m so grateful,” says Piontak, 73, a retired information technology professional living in Pittsboro who is now focused on “being available as much as possible to family and friends and being in condition so I can run a 5K on Thanksgiving.”
Getting to the Bottom of Excruciating Back Pain
Piontak had been running for about 20 years before he got sick. He often ran with two of his adult daughters, who live in Durham. He has another daughter and a son who live out of state, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
In January of 2023, Piontak started having back pain that he initially chalked up to overuse or aging. But the pain was more intense than a typical sports injury. He made multiple visits to urgent care and tried physical therapy, but that made his pain worse. He got to the point where he could not walk to the bathroom without excruciating pain, and no amount of ibuprofen would help.
He got an appointment at the UNC Hospitals Imaging and Spine Center, where testing revealed a tumor growing on his spine, strangling the nerves. UNC Health spine surgeon Douglas Weinberg, MD, removed the tumor and Piontak felt instant relief. But he had to wait to find out if the tumor was cancerous and what kind of cancer it could be; he had prostate cancer a decade before and was worried it had come back and metastasized to other parts of his body.
When UNC Health oncologist Anne Beaven, MD, told him he had diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, the most common aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, “it was kind of a relief that it was a brand-new cancer,” Piontak says.
Despite the name, “for aggressive lymphoma, the chance of cure is very high,” Dr. Beaven says. “I can’t promise we will be able to cure it in everybody, but the odds are in your favor we will be able to cure it.”
Treating Lymphoma and Building Strength
Piontak found comfort in the competence and compassion of his care team, which included Dr. Beaven and nurse navigators, whom he could call at any time for questions.
“They had confidence they could get me through this and confidence in me to be able to handle the process,” he says. “You could tell a lot of research and thought was behind everything they were doing, and a sense of, ‘We know this is rough, but we’re here for you.’”
Piontak started three months of “completely draining” chemotherapy in June 2023, followed by radiation. In an effort to boost his flagging energy, he joined the Get Real & Heel program, a small-group exercise program at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center for people who have or have had cancer.
“It was a lifesaver,” he says. “You go from active to being flat on your back and tired and not having a whole lot of interest in getting going again, and it was a way to break out of that inertia. It helped me recover mentally, too.”
Piontak also works with UNC researchers in a patient advocacy group called Patient Experience Research Collaborators, through which he helped develop a decision-support tool for older adults with advanced cancer. Before his diagnosis, Piontak volunteered with patient relations at UNC Hospitals.
Piontak’s treatments worked. In November of 2023, he “rang the bell” as his scans showed no evidence of cancer. He spent the intervening months “tiptoeing through the forest,” his way of describing the uncertainty waiting to see if the cancer comes back.
“Gary has been very resilient, and he’s had to go through a lot,” Dr. Beaven says. “He always came in happy and embracing life.”
In October, his chemotherapy port, which had been left implanted in his chest in case it was needed again, was removed.
He cried at the clinic, out of relief and gratitude.
“Funny enough I had grown quite fond of that little port, one of the greatest inventions ever,” he says.
But he won’t need it at his next starting line.
If you have questions about cancer, talk to your doctor or find one near you.