2021 Step Up for Stefanie’s Champions: Scott Marion
Ohio State honors superstars of support every year through Step Up for Stefanie’s Champions, which recognizes caregivers who played vital roles in the cancer journeys of loved ones.
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.”