Justin Spoon was having a memorable cross-country season and was primed to win the River States Conference race and earn his third consecutive NAIA nationals berth when his world was turned upside down.
Spoon, a Columbus North graduate and senior at Asbury University in Kentucky, had won three races this fall and earned RSC Runner of the Week honors three times. He was favored to win the conference title on Nov. 6.
But as the season had progressed, Spoon developed a lump on his face near his nostril and upper lip. So four days before the conference race, he went to a clinic to get it checked.
"They thought for a couple of weeks that he may have had come kind of an infection, so they gave him some antibiotics, which did not help," said Spoon’s mother Robyn. "By November, we started to get concerned. We went to a clinic, and that doctor said, Ooh, that’s not good."
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A doctor met with Justin the next day and thought it could be an abscess. Justin was hoping to postpone surgery at least until after the conference meet, but the doctor was concerned that if it was an infection, it might spread, so they did surgery the next day in Lexington.
"I kept saying to everybody this fall I was in the best shape of my life," Justin said. "I was like, ‘Can we wait a couple of days to do this,’ and he was like, ‘We better get this taken care of.’"
In the surgery on Nov. 4, doctors removed some saliva and did a biopsy. Two weeks later, they met with Justin and his parents Joel and Robyn in person and gave them the news that a tumor was found.
"We knew there was a pretty good chance it was going to be bad news because with COVID happening, they weren’t seeing anybody, and Joel and I were told to both be there," Robyn said.
Justin was diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), an aggressive form of cancer. Only about 340 people each year are diagnosed with RMS, and very few of them are as old as Justin, who is 21.
"(The doctor) told us RMS is bad luck," Robyn said. "They don’t know what causes it. They don’t know why it happens. With 340 cases a year, that’s a little less than one a day. He said you were one of the bad luck days."
Fortunately for Justin, of the two types of RMS, he has the significantly more treatable version that is more responsive to chemotherapy. Earlier this month, he spent a week at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, where he had a staging surgery and underwent several tests.
The original scan was clear, but then a couple spots were found on Justin’s lungs. Doctors did a biopsy and nuclear scan to check lymph nodes and bone marrow and had a chemo port installed so he could get a Lung Thoracoscopy. They discovered the cancer is localized to the tumor.
The family consider themselves fortunate to be only an hour-and-a-half away from Cincinnati Children’s, which is the third-ranked adolescent and young adult sarcoma center in the country.
"It’s actually a crazy, amazing blessing that we’re so close," Robyn said. "When we were there, people were coming from United Arab Emirates and other places, and doctors said, ‘Oh, you’re from the region.’ It was a huge blessing for us."
After the first of the year, Justin is scheduled to go through 42 weeks of chemotherapy. He will have inpatient or outpatient chemo every Tuesday and a big one every three weeks for 14 rounds.
In 10 weeks, doctors will rexamine the size of the tumor. Then in the spring, they will perform a big surgery to remove the tumor or radiation to try to obliterate it.
"His doctors have said that RMS is a problem-solving cancer," Robyn said. "Because of the nature of it, every time we hit a cross in the road, they’re going to say, ‘What do we need to do at this juncture?"
Every time a new doctor or nurse or assistant took Justin’s heart rate, they were alarmed at how low it was. The family had to explain that his resting heart rate was between 39 and 42 because of how good of shape he was in.
While most college races are 8K (5 miles), Justin had broken his 5K personal record for the first time since high school and set school and course record of 15 minutes, 53.78 seconds on a hilly course in Asbury’s Eagle Opener on Sept. 5.
"It was a lot of fun to see him run," Robyn said. "Joel and I went down to see him run at Louisville, and he was in third place, and he ended up coming in quite a bit ahead near the end of the race. Needless to say, we were doing a lot of screaming and cheering.
"That was the first time he complained of not feeling well," she added. "He felt some burning around his nose. But as far as his cardiovascular strength, his running, he was in peak shape. This has been an amazing year because a lot of the pieces were coming into place for him."
In the biopsy, Justin’s lung was deflated, and doctors had to insert a chest tube to make sure it remained inflated.
"I’m still healing from that," Justin said. "I’ve been going on a lot of walks, but no runs yet. I’ve been told that exercise is a good thing down the road, so I’ve been doing a lot of walking and stretching, but no runs for at least a month."
Justin is on track to graduate in May with a degree in psychology. With only one psychology class remaining and the rest being electives, that still is the goal.
"Even with all this going on, I’m still going to try to graduate in May," said Justin, who was in the process of applying to graduate school when his ordeal began.
In addition to running cross-country and track at Asbury, Justin was in a play and has been in the Men’s Glee Club this past two years. Last year, he became a Spiritual Life Assistant, which is like a chaplain for the residence halls. This fall, he was a Spiritual Life Coordinator for apartments, where he ran a weekly Bible study and organized worship events.
"Justin has had a lot of impact in a lot of places," Robyn said. "Standing on the sidelines in that race (at Louisville) in the fall, I was thinking Justin is in a better place than he ever has been. It’s been really amazing to see the village really showing up and wrapping their arms around him. God already knows Justin’s story and knows what’s going to happen next," Robyn said. "We thought we knew what we were supposed to be doing this year, but now, we’re doing something else this year."
Asbury is putting livestream fundraising and entertainment event for Justin from noon Monday to noon Tuesday. The family also has set up a Go Fund Me account at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-justin039s-fight-with-rms?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet
Any funds that are raised that are above what Justin needs for his medical bills will go to provide research and help for other families affected by RMS.
"Clearly, it’s a scary diagnosis, and there’s a lot ahead," Justin said. "But I’ve been very grateful through the entire process to have had a great team a doctors. The confidence that they’ve shown and the competence that they’ve shown, as well, I have nothing short of expectations of beating this. In our relationships with God, he doesn’t set things in front of his that we aren’t prepared to handle, and I think I’m as well prepared as anybody could be to handle this."
