Koster staying positive in battle

By Patrick Donahue

Marietta Daily Journal Sports Writer

The break in the weather Saturday couldn’t have come at a better time for the members and players at Dogwood Country Club.

They had gathered, 240 of them, for a benefit tournament for fellow member Brad Koster. Koster, 22 years old, suffers from a rare form of cancer and his brothers-in-arm golfers hit the links in support of him.

“It’s great,” said Dogwood head pro Robin Roberson of the tournament and the turnout. “We only had three weeks to get it together. We had a lot of tremendous effort getting people to play in it. Brad’s here and that’s all that matters.”

Roberson said she wasn’t surprised at the massive turnout on such short notice. For Koster, a second-team Marietta Daily Journal all-Cobb County basketball selection in 1996 from The Walker School, the tournament was emotional.

“It’s been overwhelming,” he said. “Seeing everybody here has been overwhelming, seeing that people really care. They really care about our family. It’s touching to the heart. I think it’s a great way to show their support. It really helps me out and helps my family out.

“It’s hard to put into words how it’s helped us out, going through this horrible disease, someone my age, in good health, having been a pretty good kid. It’s just great to know people are behind you.”

Last October, Koster first felt a pain in his abdomen. Then a student at the University of Georgia, Koster went to the University Health Systems.

“They did some basic blood work and nothing came up,” he said.

The pain subsided until January when it flared up again. That resulted in another trip to the doctor for Koster, who was in his final quarter at school.

“No tissue had shown up by January, but the pain had increased,” he said. “It was off and on. Then I could feel hard tissue, like a golf ball.”

The next step was a CT scan and the images told the tale: Koster had cancer and it had metastasized, meaning it had spread.

“That showed the tumor and the spot on the lungs,” he said.

Within a week, Koster was at the renowned Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, one of the top cancer treatment hospitals in the country.

“The doctors moved that fast,” he said. “It was that serious.”

Koster will have surgery in about three weeks and he has had three chemotherapy treatments. He is supposed to have four more chemotherapy treatments following surgery. He is scheduled to then undergo radiation treatment.

Koster’s cancer, a sarcoma, is a breed unto itself. “They haven’t narrowed it down,” he said. “It’s a differential sarcoma and there’s no other type of tumor like it. They had to make an educated guess on the treatment.”

Doctors are using the treatment they would for Ewing’s sarcoma because it is the cancer most like Koster’s, he said. His tumor is so unique it even carries his name — Brad’s tumor. The tumor has been reduced by 50 percent since its discovery, allowing doctors to perform the surgery.

“I’m very healthy and my body has reacted well to the chemotherapy,” he said.

But chemotherapy takes its toll on cancer patients in different ways. Koster is responding so well to the treatments that doctors allowed him to fly home Friday night for the tournament. He flew back to New York on Sunday.

“A day like today really energizes me,” he said Saturday. “What wears me out is the chemotherapy and the side effects. There’s a chronic fatigue, but it’s also mental. Something like this picks you up.”

Koster’s cancer treatment will run from six to seven months, but his focus is squarely on the immediate future.

“It’s a day-by-day process,” he said. “You think about the next day. You don’t think about the negatives. I think about what I need to do. I think about the positives.”

His attitude, and the fact he is in otherwise good health and an athlete, have helped him deal with his cancer. Koster’s aware of the mental and emotional strain cancer can take.

“A lot of people check out when they hear, ‘I have cancer.’ They say, ‘Gosh, I’m done.’ But I’ve got all the positives in my corner. I’m at the best place in the world and I never think about the negatives.”

And a day like Saturday at Dogwood shows Koster may have the upper hand in his fight.

“People are surprised I’m here [at Dogwood]. I’m not,” he said. “I know I’m going to beat it.”