The ones who steadfastly stand beside us, and inspire us to strength.
The ones who will not retreat from fear, and inspire us to courage.
The ones who sacrifice all for us, and inspire us to love.
The ones who will not let go, and inspire us to hold on.
These are Stefanie's Champions.
Meet Our 2021 Champions
Meet one of our 2021 Champions, Scott Marion, who was nominated by breast cancer survivor Bobbi Marion.
“That just blew the roof off of everything for us.”
“My cancer treatments originally started in 2010. I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I ended up having to have a right breast mastectomy,” Bobbi says. “Everything was going good for the next six years, and then in 2019, I was diagnosed with ALL (acute lymphoblastic leukemia), and that just blew the roof off of everything for us.”
“She needed to know that somebody was there all the time.”
“We started the process of the chemo, and I checked into the hospital, and I lived there for the month. Scott was wonderful. [Eventually], I had to have a bone marrow transplant,” Bobbi says. “You have a hundred days after a transplant where you need 24-hour care, even though you can care for yourself.”
“I felt as if she needed to know that somebody was there all the time. That's why I stayed every night. [There were] a couple of bad nights, but we're still here,” Scott says. “Would anybody do that? I would hope that they would. But, at least for myself, I had to do it.”
“We're going to just keep plugging along, day after day.”
“He helps me with my regiment of things that I have to do. We talk about when should I take my pills because the one makes me hyper,” Bobbi says. “We talk about when I should take them and when it's going to be best and things like that. We're going to just keep plugging along, day after day.”
“It has been a long trip over the last 32 years. The one thing that her and I have had is each other,” Scott says. “I had health problems myself twice. I think, as the older we have gotten, [we have] been closer than what we ever would have had before.”
“You need to have somebody there with you.”
“I feel it's very important to have a champion. You have to have that person in your corner that's just there all the time,” Bobbi says. “They don't have to be positive all of the time. They can have sad thoughts too because that's human. Knowing that he can be just as upset about it as I can be, and that we can cry together, and that we're there together — that's everything. It makes everything that much easier.”
“I would agree with her. I have never been part of cancer or had met cancer myself, but you need to have somebody there with you,” Scott says. “You need to be strong all the way through, and you cannot do it by yourself. Whether it is a husband, wife, aunt, mother — anything else — you need to have somebody like that to be with you, to go with you through the whole journey of having cancer.”
Meet one of our 2021 Champions, Jay Zatezalo, who was nominated by breast cancer survivor Kathy Dennis.
“A crazy year”
“2020 was such a crazy year, and being diagnosed with cancer put a whole different spin on it. Jay didn't want to be anywhere else,” Kathy says. “Through my infusions and my chemo... he was able to come with me to my first two, which was great because at least he got to see what I was doing each week, and that helped him and it helped me. Other than that, he sat in the parking lot every week. This was my second round with breast cancer, and I pretty much went through that one alone.”
“A wonderful person and a wonderful caregiver”
“This isn't his first round of being a wonderful person and a wonderful caregiver,” Kathy says of Jay. “Unfortunately, he went through this also with his mother when he was 12, and she did not make it through her journey.”
“Knowing that there was such a difference in time between my mom and now, the hope was that, ‘Wow, you know, they've done better with all this,'” Jay says. “Whether it's the chemotherapy, the treatments... they just know so much more. The fear was much better after we went to the meetings with doctors and the nurses during the chemo. It was just much better after that — I got to see what was going on.”
“That man didn’t hesitate”
“He wasn't going to let me be alone. I wound up at The James a few times, and thank goodness for FaceTime because he was still with me,” Kathy says. “And when I came home — the gross part of breast removal is you come home with drain tubes, and they're gross, and they're nasty, and they have to be drained three times a day, and what comes out of it has to be measured — that man didn't hesitate.”
“We both got to hang out at home together a lot, which a lot of people did [during the pandemic],” Jay says. “The difference was that she was going through all this process of the diagnosis, the surgery, the chemo, the follow-up — all that stuff. But when we would go to appointments and infusions, I would text her back and forth to see, ‘Have they started yet? What are they doing?’" She got cold real easy. So [I’d ask], ‘Do you have your blanket with you? Did they get you something to eat or drink to kill time?’"
“We were going through it together”
“[During her appointments], I would usually run and get the car washed and come back and sit in the car. I would do some work or something and just text once in a while, check up on her, see how she was doing... ‘Are you getting close to done? Have you started,’ all that kind of good stuff,” Jay says. “I just wanted her to know that I was somewhere close, that I wasn't at home watching a movie or something, that we were going through it together.”
“You’re in this together”
“I didn't have to ask him to do it. It was never even a conversation that we had. He just did it,” Kathy says. “No one should ever have to walk this road alone. Jay was part of the norm — I didn't even know there was a norm because we were going down this road during the pandemic. We've gotten to a point in our relationship where he knows me. Sometimes I don't have to say anything, and he knows what I need just by an expression or the way I move my hands.”
“I was shocked [at being named a Step Up for Stefanie’s Champion]. I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know that she had written a letter,” Jay says. “It's a great honor that you hope you never had to have. Sitting in the parking lot wasn't really that tough to do, you know? The drain tubes weren't fun, but the rest of it was just being a partner. You're in this together. I mean, if you care, you do it. You do it to the best of your ability. You do what you need to do.”
Meet one of our 2021 Champions, Ron Passen, who was nominated by his wife, breast cancer survivor Jody.
“A high-speed train ride”
“I was deemed high risk when I was 31. Since then, I’ve been going to get screened every six months,” Jody says. “In October of 2018, my mammogram was clean. Then in June of 2019, when I had my MRI, that's when they found my tumor.”
“I was playing in a charity golf outing,” Ron says. “I knew that she had had these scans and the biopsy, and we were just used to having a negative result, but she called me and said it was positive. At that point, there's an urgent need for as much information as possible, so I left immediately in the middle of the charity event. I'm sure the foursome is still wondering what happened to me because I just excused myself and I left.”
“I tell people it was much like a very high-speed train ride because I was diagnosed June 12, my surgery was July 3, I started chemotherapy August 5, I believe, and then I started radiation October 28,” Jody says.
“A rock like you can’t believe — there every step of the way”
“We were only married a year-and-a-half when I was diagnosed, and he was a rock like you can't believe,” Jody says. “He drove me to everything, and he was the second set of ears that you absolutely need when you first get diagnosed because you're just so overwhelmed and everything's getting thrown at you very quickly. Ron was absolutely there every step of the way.”
“I love her, number one,” Ron says.” Number two — being with her on a daily basis, you realize how impactful this is. I think even for the most confident person, having this diagnosis, the unknown, the uncertainty, it really shakes your world. I was the one who could monitor how she was feeling, whether she was tired and what she was up for.”
“We knew this was the place we needed to be”
“I absolutely knew the second I walked into the Stefanie Spielman Comprehensive Breast Center that that's where we belonged for my treatments and everything else,” Jody says. “That really differentiated Ohio State,” Ron adds. “Every element of the team — whether it was chemotherapy or surgery or radiation — knew exactly what the other parts were doing.
“That first day, that's exactly what you need because we were so desperate for information. Ohio State did a great job of reviewing everything that we gave them. They double-checked the information and the lab results. We came away very confident in our plan, our physicians and our facilities, and we knew this was the place we needed to be.”
“He really deserves it”
“He's very deserving [of the Champions honor]. I know that there were lots of nominations, and I'm just very happy that he was selected,” Jody says. “I wouldn't have been able to make it through without him, and I'm very thankful and appreciative that he was there to support me and love me because it was not an easy road.”
“Being elected to this was a total shock and surprise and an honor, and I'm very humbled by it,” Ron says. “This was about Jody and her journey, and just making sure that she had everything she needed.
“I work in health care, and I've seen patients without champions. So, we've actively reached out for patients that don't have those advocates, and we volunteered to be there for them. We’re always more than willing to step up and help those patients because they need that. I mean, everybody needs that person, especially at that point in their life.”
Meet one of our 2021 Champions, Bethany Lockwood, who was nominated by breast cancer survivor Lori Brisbin-Shepler.
“This is not a good time”
“I was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer in April, 2017. I wasn't really that surprised because my mom and my sister both had breast cancer, but I was very overwhelmed,” Lori says. “The first thought that came to my mind was, ‘This is not a good time. My daughter's getting married in September and that needs to be the focus right now.’ But obviously, I couldn't wait because it's not safe to do that. So, I reached out to Bethany and told her what was going on.”
“I was actually in my last year of medical residency, so I was finishing my training before going into my fellowship in hospice and palliative medicine,” Bethany says. “So, I remember when she had first told me I was actually leaving a shift, and I think initially also probably had the same emotional response that she did, which was a sense of overwhelming and needing to acknowledge that.”
“I really just needed to be her daughter”
“She immediately shifted into high gear and organized my life,” Lori says. “It was the best thing she could have done for me because I was completely overwhelmed. In spite of the fact that she's a doctor and works millions of hours, was planning her own wedding... she had to deal with this on top of it. She was amazing, she was at every appointment, every chemotherapy, every surgery — she found me the best doctors at the Stefanie Spielman Center.”
“It's challenging to serve in multiple roles,” Bethany says. “There were times where I needed to think ‘Okay, I need to put my daughter hat on here, or I need to put my doctor hat on here.’ She had amazing doctors, so I really just needed to be her daughter.”
“I grew up being a cheerleader”
“I was very afraid of going into my bilateral mastectomy surgery — I wasn't sure what to expect,” Lori says. “She was just so supportive and optimistic that it was going to be fine, and I was going to get through it with flying colors, and I was going to be cured. I just kept all those positive thoughts in my head going through that surgery.”
“I grew up being a cheerleader,” Bethany says. “I really recognized that this was going to be a challenging journey, and there were going to be lots of ups and downs and uncertainty throughout. I just wanted her to always have hope, so I wanted to be able to give that to her. I think that's a gift that I can give and something that I can generally do fairly well.”
“It was the best day ever”
“On her wedding day, I forgot I had cancer because I was so happy for Bethany,” Lori says. “She found the most wonderful man, and she was embraced into another family that adored her. It was just wonderful to have all the family and friends there and watch how happy the two of them were. I didn't even think about [cancer] for a minute because it was all about her and John that day and their happily ever after. I was grateful to be there.”
“I had both my parents walk me down the aisle, which was really important to me and really special, given the strength that my mom showed on that day and how much she put me and John first and just celebrated with us,” Bethany says. “It was the best day ever, and it was just so much fun to be able to celebrate that with her, and she's right — it was as if she didn't have cancer that day. The focus was on just celebrating and being together as a family.”