What Coastal Carolina baseball coach Gary Gilmore learned in his first cancer checkup
Coastal Carolina University baseball coach Gary Gilmore got some good news last week during the first of what is expected to be several three-month checkups on his progress at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
It was good enough to bring him to tears.
Gilmore learned after three months of chemotherapy treatments that the cancerous tumors in his liver and on his pancreas have shrunk by approximately 20 percent.
“Tears of sheer joy and happiness and a release of anxiety,” Gilmore explained. “You do everything you can to not let it get the best of you or preoccupy your mind. I felt like I had really done a very good job of that part, and being positive and the whole nine yards since the very first day. I’ll never stop being that regardless of what happens.
“But it was a huge emotional release to be very honest with you.”
Gilmore took tests and exams and met with the group of doctors handling his case over three days to assess the results and set the plan for the next three months.
Doctors hoped to stunt the growth of the tumors over the first three months, then subsequently begin to shrink them, Gilmore said. But they were so pleased with his progress they have changed the course of action, and now plan to continue the same 14-day cycles for another 10 months. The treatments consist of 14 days of chemotherapy followed by 14 days off.
“It’s going about as good as it can go,” Gilmore said. “. . . They feel very confident with my current health and the way my body’s holding up. I feel great. I have energy. If it wasn’t for the fear of the [COVID-19] virus I’d be able to do everything and anything I’ve ever been able to do.”
Gilmore, 62, is being treated for pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer, which develops from the abnormal growth of hormone-producing cells in the pancreas, and he said the tumor secretes hormones into the blood stream that can cause further complications in his body. He said the pancreatic tumor is small and very slow-growing, and has likely existed for several years.
The cancer is not operable or curable at this time, Gilmore said, but it can be very manageable. He was initially diagnosed with liver cancer after a large mass was discovered on his liver, but further testing revealed the source of the cancer was a spot on the pancreas.
“If everything goes right, by this time next year I could potentially have no visible signs through technology of having cancer, even though it will still be there,” Gilmore said.
Because it is a hormonal cancer, if the tumors are reduced to the point of near elimination Gilmore would still remain on a medicine to control the hormone.
“I feel very confident we’re moving in the right direction and my doctors and everybody, and all of us here at home are doing the right things,” Gilmore said.
Gilmore believes his doctors will continue the current treatment until it proves to be ineffective.
“I think we’re going to stay the course with this and go the max with it and see if we can’t stay just on this one series of chemo medicines so we don’t burn up other medicines we have available to us,” Gilmore said. “You can only take this stuff for so long. Over time it mutates and gets to a point where the medicine doesn’t work after a while.”
Gilmore said his liver is operating at nearly 100 percent.
“The good part is I have 99-point-something percent functionability in my liver, so my liver has compensated greatly for it, and now that we’re able to shrink those things it should be getting better and better every single day that goes by,” he said. “. . . The good part about the liver, according to everything I’ve studied and read, you can live with your liver only functioning at 20 percent, leading a normal active life as an athlete.”
Gilmore is living at his home in the Litchfield area of Pawleys Island while undergoing his cancer treatments locally.
He has reacted relatively well to his treatments, with the exception of a few days a month where he battles nausea, lethargy and fatigue – caused in part by his medications. He has generally maintained a healthy appetite, has managed to regularly exercise at home with an elliptical cardiovascular machine and some free weights, and has maintained his weight of approximately 180 pounds.
“Compared to what I’ve seen some people go through I’ve been very blessed. I have a day here or there where it’s a couch day for whatever reason,” Gilmore said. “For the most part I would say anywhere from 21 to 25 days [a month] I’m money.”
He plans to buy more workout equipment to create a small home gym. “The exercise piece is a very big piece of beating this type of cancer,” he said.
Gilmore will be entering his 26th year leading his alma mater’s program.
He left the team after just two games in mid-February and associate head coach and 17-year CCU assistant Kevin Schnall took over head coaching duties. Schnall led the team to an 11-5 record in Gilmore’s absence before the season was cut short on March 12 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I feel wholeheartedly with my job, I have a great staff of guys and I don’t question for one second that I can do my job and hold my own and do everything I need to do the way I’ve done it in the past,” Gilmore said. “If I ever need to be picked up for a day I couldn’t be more blessed to have a better group of people there to pick me up.”
As expected, the Chants lost four players with eligibility remaining to Major League Baseball teams last week, as pitcher Zach McCambley was drafted, and infielder Scott McKeon and pitchers Scott Kobos and Chase Antle signed with teams.
Unexpectedly, they have retained rising senior outfielder Parker Chavers, a 2020 College Preseason Second Team All-American by both Perfect Game and Baseball America and one of D1Baseball’s 2020 Top 60 college prospects entering the draft. After going undrafted, Chavers said on Twitter: “2021 will be a big year . . . count on it.”
“Parker is one of the guys who is kind of the face of the program in a lot of ways,” Gilmore said. “He’s an incredible player on the field, a perfect example of the type of young man you want to represent you off the field, a kid of faith. He’s the whole package.”
In his 25 seasons at CCU, Gilmore has led the Chants to an NCAA Division I national championship in 2016 and to a record of 974-507-2. In his 31-year head coaching career, he has amassed a record of 1,227-609-4, giving him the sixth-most wins among active Division I coaches, including 253 wins in six seasons at USC Aiken from 1990-95.
Gilmore will continue his cancer treatments with optimism.
“Every day God allows me to keep waking up is a day closer to them coming up with the next drug, the next better drug,” Gilmore said. “Ten years from now they may have stuff that makes this an easy thing to cure. They’ve just made so many advances on this particular type of cancer in the last 10 years even though it’s very rare. You just take one day at a time.”
