How terminal brain cancer diagnosis gave Wichita high school AD a new clarity on life
Michael Church was stuck on the word “average.”
A doctor in a white coat was telling the 42-year-old news that would change the rest of his life, essentially giving him an expiration date, informing him that he was being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, glioblastoma to be exact, and the average survival time is around 12 months.
“Between my God and my personality, I don’t believe there’s anything average about either one of us,” Church said. “Nobody has ever beat this, but somebody has got to be the first. So why not me?”
Church, the popular and gregarious athletic director at Wichita Heights, has made it his focus to “win the day” every day since his life was turned upside down by the out-of-nowhere diagnosis in early February.
The diagnosis wasn’t a death sentence; quite the opposite, actually. Church believes it has given him a new lease on life.
He’s eating cleaner. He’s running more. He’s practicing yoga. He’s loving the extra time with his wife, Laura, and their 8-year-old son, Kendric. After 10 weeks of chemotherapy and radiation, Church even returned to work at Heights last week.
“Honestly, if you didn’t tell me what my diagnosis was, I would have no idea that I have cancer right now,” Church said.
Church feels like he is winning the battle of a lifetime and he has made it his mission to try to inspire as many people as possible with his outlook.
“A lot of people look at me with puppy dog eyes and I don’t want them to look at me like that,” Church said. “To me, it’s freeing because I get to walk around with this clarity. I was in such a hurry to do life before and now I appreciate every new day and view each new day as a blessing. There’s something very freeing about that.”
‘Immediately you think you’re going to die’
It was a typical Saturday afternoon for a high school athletic director, as Michael Church was overseeing a freshman boys basketball tournament.
He woke up on Jan. 29 feeling like a perfectly healthy 42-year-old man. He would go to sleep that night worrying something was seriously wrong.
It’s typically a seizure that foreshadows a glioblastoma diagnosis, but for Church, it was a dizzy spell and accelerated heart rate. He checked his blood pressure at the tournament and it was soaring, so he headed straight to the emergency room. He was sent home that night with a diagnosis of pneumonia.
Church woke up the next morning and couldn’t balance himself to walk. Sensing something was wrong, his wife drove him back to the emergency room where he underwent a CT scan.
He was alone in the room when the doctor gravely informed him the scan had detected a tumor the size of a vanilla wafer on the left frontal lobe of his brain.
“It’s like you start seeing the future,” Church said. “You try to envision what everybody is about to go through. Immediately you think you’re going to die. It’s like your brain is working at 100 miles per hour trying to process what is going on, what just happened. It was all a blur.”
Laura was a nervous wreck waiting alone in her car, unable to join her husband due to coronavirus safety precautions. A pit grew in her stomach when her phone rang and a doctor on the other end summoned her inside to share the life-altering news.
“I’ve grown up in sports my whole life and have been a coach,” Laura said. “My first reaction was, ‘What’s the game plan? What are we facing? How are we going to deal with it?’ Your mind just starts spinning.”
Two days later, Michael underwent surgery in Wichita to remove the mass from his brain. Doctors were able to fully resect the tumor, but unable to remove all the cells with malignancy.
Two weeks later, biopsy results confirmed it was glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
“I’ve had people close to me diagnosed with cancer before, but it’s different when it’s your husband and you have an 8-year-old at home,” Laura said. “There’s so many things that flood your mind when that initial diagnosis came.”
“When I first heard that I had terminal brain cancer, I kind of just smiled,” Michael said. “I just thought, ‘Everyone is living a terminal life.’ We’re all going to die, whether you have terminal brain cancer or not. Don’t get me wrong, I have my bad days, but I feel like I’ve been blessed by this process more than anything.”
‘I’m not going to live in the valley of fear’
Laura Church told herself she wasn’t going to Google glioblastoma.
“I knew it could lead me down a real dark rabbit hole real quickly,” Laura said.
She couldn’t help herself. She checked the survival rate. She saw the minuscule numbers. She was terrified. She cried a lot back then.
But as the days wore on, she couldn’t help but be inspired by Michael’s unbreakable spirit. His strength gave her strength. Soon, she made a pact with herself.
“I made up my mind that I’m not going to live in the valley of fear,” Laura said. “That’s a waste of my energy.”
Laura has been Michael’s best friend, his caretaker, his number one cheerleader. She is there to encourage him, guide him and console him.
Michael keeps a picture of his wife and son close to his bed so he can look at it as soon as he wakes up for the day.
“Those two are my motivation every day,” Michael said. “That’s what I’m fighting for. And this is not a fight I’m willing to lose. I’m going after it.”
Michael always had the gift of making people believe in what he was saying. He speaks with such conviction, such passion that you start to think he already knows the future and he’s determined to make you see it that way too.
It’s not hard to see why he was a state champion wrestling coach. Or why Laura fell in love with him and married him nearly 12 years ago.
“Michael is certainly one of a kind,” Laura said. “He’s the only person who can make me laugh ridiculously hard and then get so mad and go through the whole array of emotions. But that’s why I chose him to be my husband. There is nothing average about him. He’s never been one to back down from a challenge. He’s always been stubborn in that way.
“When we got married, nothing like this was ever in the plans. But we’re prepared to fight and he’s not going to lay down and get pinned. He’s going to do everything he can to fight.”
Michael brought that same zest to his jobs in the Wichita Public School district, whether that was as a special education teacher, a wrestling coach or an athletic director in stops at South, North and Heights.
He brought unmatched energy as the public address announcer at soccer games. He put in extra time as an athletic director to make the City League wrestling tournament a standout event. No event was ever too small for him to bring his unbridled enthusiasm, which made him popular with other administrators.
“Mike is one of those guys who everybody wants to be around,” said Michelle Kuhns, who taught Michael and Laura when they were students at South and later worked with him at South. “He just has this fun-loving personality and he really knows how to light up a room. He’s got that addictive personality.”
That’s why more than 150 family members, friends and colleagues came out to a Wichita State baseball game in March to help raise money to pay for the family’s expenses during Michael’s treatment. A GoFundMe has also been created to help support the family.
Kuhns helped organize the event and said WSU athletic department members Alex Johnson and Brent Kemnitz and WSU baseball coach Eric Wedge went “above and beyond” to help. They helped deliver custom-designed WSU baseball jerseys to Michael and his son, while Kendric was even allowed to throw out the game’s first pitch.
“As a father, that’s one of those moments that you will never forget and I hope he never forgets,” Michael said. “There was this great picture of me standing next to him, looking over him. I love that picture because I want him to know that I’m always going to be looking over his shoulder.”
That wasn’t the only highlight of the night. Mark Haught, the former athletic director at Maize, called in a favor and surprised the family by telling them they will now fly for free to their appointments in Houston at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center on a private plane through Angel Flight, a group of volunteer pilots who help arrange free transportation to medical treatment.
“Everybody cried, but you could tell there were some happy tears,” Kuhns said. “You could tell it was a huge relief from flying in an airport when you don’t feel good, when you’ve been told bad news and you have to lay over somewhere. This way they can be together on their own and having that burden off their shoulders is priceless.”
‘Stats don’t take God into the equation’
In a way, this battle against cancer has transported Michael Church in a time machine back to the year 1997 when he was training tirelessly to try to win a state wrestling championship as a high school senior at South.
Michael embodied the “refuse-to-lose” spirit back then and practically willed himself to a 36-0 season, culminating in the 135-pound Class 6A gold medal wrapped around his neck.
“I feel like I have the same mindset as I did back then and I’m training for a wrestling match, only this time it’s the biggest championship of my life,” Michael said.
He has lost 20 pounds of what he calls “good” weight and not “chemo” weight with his new routine which consists of running and walking at least two miles per day, practicing yoga and eating healthier.
Just last week, he completed his 30th and final round of radiation to finish the first phase of his chemotherapy at Ascension Via Christi Cancer Center. He will have a month off of treatment before starting the next round of oral chemotherapy, which will feature five days of treatment and 23 days off for six months to a year.
“Things don’t seem as scary anymore as they did when it first happened,” Laura said. “We’re enjoying life now. I think the diagnosis has given us a different type of clarity on our future and the importance of every day versus just waiting for the next good thing to happen. We try to make the most of the day and make good things happen for this day. Winning the day, instead of wasting the day is what we’re focused on.”
Loved ones have been able to follow Michael’s journey through constant updates on Facebook, which close friend Michelle Kuhns said are more inspiring by the day.
“Not everything always goes your way in life, but if you work hard and you stay positive, then good things are going to happen,” Kuhns said. “That’s what is going to happen with Mike. It is absolutely amazing to see, especially with all of the negative going on in the world today, it’s incredible to see so much good come from one family.”
There are still moments of weakness for Michael, where he sometimes feels overwhelmed by the bad thoughts and sadness.
He has found courage attending a cancer support group in Wichita at Victory in the Valley. He has met a 61-year-old who was diagnosed with glioblastoma seven years ago and is feeling healthy. Laura combed the Internet to find a book written by a woman who is on Year 20 living past her diagnosis.
Michael wants to be the latest and greatest success story. He wants to grow old with his wife and be there for when his son gets married. He wants to defy the numbers.
After all, there is nothing average about him.
“I believe God still has a lot more to write in my story,” Michael said. “This is my story I get to tell and I hope to glorify God through my story and encourage a lot of people and take a lot of people to God through all of this.
“I don’t believe I’m the average and I know my God is not average. So when they talk about the stats, well, stats don’t take God into the equation.”
This story was originally published April 27, 2022 at 6:30 AM.
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