Cochrane Cobras defensive-backs coach Jeff Avery looks over at centre Brock Wiebe and understands the 17-year-old football player’s precarious situation. For the last four months, Wiebe has been in the fight of his life, taking chemotherapy treatments for advanced non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Just over a year ago Avery, a lieutenant with Cochrane Fire Services, “wasn’t feeling right,” as he put it. Among other things, his hand was going numb.
“I thought I was having a stroke,” Avery says. A trip to hospital and one scan later, it was revealed the 46-year-old had a near-baseball-sized tumor in his brain. Specialists speculated he had days to live without acute medical intervention.
“The doctors warned I might be paralyzed from my neck down following the operation,” Avery said between scrimmages at the June 14 Holy Trinity Academy Knights football jamboree in Okotoks. “It didn’t sound very good.”
The tumor was removed, Avery walked out of the hospital and 14 months later he’s long since returned to helping people in distress and coaching football at his old high school. His son, Cole, is slated to tote the rock out of the backfield for the Cobras in the fall.
“I’m grateful every day for how this has turned out,” he states. “I don’t take anything for granted.”
He glances over at Wiebe conversing with teammates on the sidelines and observes: “Phenomenal. He’s an inspiration.”
To which Wiebe would be compelled to reply: “Right back at you.”
