DEREK FISHER AND ME

by CC Rider, The Black Flag Blog

Not the Usual Black Flag -- This One is Serious, Personal and Potentially Life Saving.

On May 7th, point guard Derek Fisher missed the first game of the Utah Jazz's playoffs against the Golden State Warriors. He rejoined his team three days later in the middle of the third quarter during the second game in Salt Lake City.

Fisher provided a key fourth quarter turnover in that game and hit a three pointer in overtime to help the Jazz take a 2-0 lead over the Warriors.

Fisher had left a hospital in New York City that afternoon where his 10 month old daughter Tatum had just been diagnosed with and was being treated for a disease called retinoblastoma -- cancer of the retina. It is a rare, life threatening disease that only 350 children a year are diagnosed with in the United States.

On Wednesday this week, my four year old son CJ joined Tatum Fisher in being one of those 350 kids who will get that diagnosis this year.

Without a doubt, Wednesday was a day of shock. Thursday and Friday have been about reality.

To give you an idea of how rare this is, there are only eight medical practices in the entire country who deal with retinoblastoma.

The odds on having this disease are pretty close to what they were during a poker tournament when I flopped four 8's and had runners on the turn and river to lose to four jacks.

We live in Richmond, VA. On Monday we travel to Philadelphia to spend the day with one of those specialists.

As a longtime Redskins fan, I have a firm policy of not exposing my son to large numbers of Eagles fans.

But we've done our research, and we're very confident that this doctor is highly skilled and a real pioneer when it comes to dealing with this disease (even though it means dealing with this in the town that booed and threw snow balls at Santa Clause).

So, why am I writing about this?

Regular readers of The Black Flag come here expecting to read me goofing on somebody in NASCAR. This is a humor blog about NASCAR. In fact, right now I have the Kasey Kahne PR machine in meltdown over my Budman post, using paid shills to make comments on it.

Obviously, this piece isn't what you are used to getting here (although even in this post I couldn't stop myself taking a few shots).

The key to surviving retinoblastoma is early detection. That's the entire ballgame.

There is only one reason why we even had him checked out: my wife's cousin, Cheri saw something in a photograph. Then she said something about it.

Cheri can't even remember where she heard about this, but she just knew she had.

See the white glow in the left eye? That is the symptom. That's what to look for. Sure, it could be something else. But that is the number one way it is detected -- flash photography.

So if you see it in a child's photo, say something.

If you know someone who is a professional children's photographer, ask them to be on the lookout for this. People you know who work with children, tell them about this.

But most of all, if you have kids, look at their pictures.

Right now, we don't know for certain that we have caught CJ's in time. We think we have. We have a number of reasons to be optimistic we have. We'll probably know on Monday.

But the only reason we even know there is a problem is that somebody did him a life saving favor. So I need to do what I can to try and repay that favor to somebody else.

There are enough people who read TBF (by people I do mean in addition to the sports spy agency over at Sports Media Challenge that according to my log files monitors The Black Flag with the enthusiasm of the NSA keeping tabs on Al-Qaeda) to get the word out to make a life changing difference for somebody.

Sure, Derek Fisher has been able to reach far more people than I can, but I know I can get to a bunch he didn't. What I'd like to do is just get to the right one.

It's easy to do. It's just that very few people even know what to look for. I sure didn't. In CJ's case, nobody had even noticed any problems. He's an otherwise healthy kid and he's not in any pain.

As it stands now, CJ is coming into this as someone who has a fantastic attitude.

I've written before that about how his favorite NASCAR driver is somebody who handles himself at the track with a great attitude -- Jeff Burton.

CJ has some tough days coming down the road and they are coming real fast.

His attitude and that of everyone around him will are going to make a difference in how he comes out of this thing.

There are quite a few things we don't know right now, but one of the things we have been told is that he will be legally blind in his right eye for life.

As strange as it sounds, that's an outcome we'll happily accept. What matters is that he pulls through this. There are plenty of kids who have to face far, far worse.

As tough as this has been, we've been touched and amazingly blessed by so many people who have already reached out to help and have done so in ways we couldn't expect or didn't even know to ask for.

For those you who want to know what you can do to help....

First off, prayer helps, prayer matters. By my last count, the only deity who isn't getting an earful from a whole bunch of people about CJ is Mohammad. He can always use more.

If you are involved in an organization that helps with cancer, sick children, blindness, or something else that makes this a good fit and you want to get in touch with me, contact me through this link here (if you want to push some alternative medical therapy, please don't -- I promise you that my reaction to that will be something you won't enjoy).

At this point, we still don't know which way is up and what all he is going to need. So we don't know what to ask for. I might not have a clue about what all is going to happen next, but I already know we can't do this on our own.

We wouldn't even to be getting him what he needs on Monday without the help we've already gotten.

But more than anything else you can do, next time you see a picture of a kid, just take a look at the eyes. You might just save their life.

As you might gather, over the next week or two you probably won't be seeing as much from me as you normally would.

However, much to the chagrin of the NSA types at Sports Media Challenge (KGB types if they have any IRL clients), I will be back soon and bringing the smack and the funny down harder than ever.