Just try to catch me, cancer, says local cover model

The call came while Scott Spitz was in the hospital, recovering from his second major surgery in the past two years to treat a rare form of abdominal cancer.

Somehow, as he recuperated from the 15-hour procedure, Spitz, 38, managed to convey to the Runner’s World editors on the line just how critical his running has been to his health battles.

The Eastside Indianapolis resident’s story so touched the editors that they decided to name him the male winner of their 2014 cover contest. Spitz will be featured on the cover of the December issue, giving him a platform to raise awareness of less common diseases such as the one that has plagued him.

“There’s no 5K runs for my type of cancer,” he said. “It’s not breast cancer. It’s not as prevalent, so there’s not a huge group of people rallying around trying to deal with it.”

But the way that Spitz has coped spoke to the Runner’s World editors, who had to choose from among more than 2,300 entrants. Spitz penned a few paragraphs about his running experience as his surgery neared.

His entry attracted the attention of the three-judge panel, which chose 10 finalists and interviewed each one over the phone.

The finalists told of a variety of personal accomplishments, from completing 12 marathons in 12 months to losing nearly 300 pounds. Andrew Peterson, also of Indianapolis, talked about how his intellectual disability as a child — he was born with fetal alcohol syndrome — brought him to running and eventually to gold in the Special Olympics.

Spitz, a graphic designer, spoke of his health challenges.

“My tagline was cancer is trying to kill me, but it’s going to have to catch me first,” said Spitz, whose cover shoot in White River State Park included shots of his very skinny self with shirt off revealing the surgery scars. “That’s the reality, this is the reality, cancer.”

This was not always Spitz’s reality. In fact, after running in his youth, he took a lengthy hiatus from the sport. Then in 2007, when his son Augustin was born, Spitz, at that point a cyclist, decided to go out for a run, and his love of running returned.

The next month, he ran a 10K and finished seventh overall and first in his age group.

Suddenly, Spitz was hooked again. In 2009, he ran the Mini Marathon and qualified for the Chicago Marathon. He had never considered doing a marathon, but after that, he figured why not and joined a local training team.

In 2010, he decided to try to qualify for the Olympic trials as a marathoner. He did not make it, but he continued running, regularly logging 30 miles every Saturday.

About a year and a half ago, he noticed that his abdomen looked distended. At first he thought he was putting on weight, then he suspected an umbilical hernia.

A doctor at St. Vincent Health diagnosed something very different: pseudomyxoma peritonei, a rare condition in which mucinous tumors leak cancer cells into the abdominal cavity. About 1 in 500,000 people a year are diagnosed with this condition, according to the PMP Research Foundation.

During his first lengthy surgery, doctors cut out the tumors and did a chemowash, in which they filled his abdomen with chemotherapy for 90 minutes before sewing him back up. Weeks of chemotherapy followed, but the doctors told Spitz to expect another procedure as they were not able to get all of the tumors the first time around.

After that surgery, Spitz was in the hospital for about a month and then up and down after that for another month. But as soon as he could, he returned to running as much as possible. On his first run, he had to down painkillers just to make it through.

Although PMP often does not respond to chemotherapy, doctors in Spitz’s case noted that while his cancer was not shrinking, it was not growing. And that’s considered a response of sorts.

Spitz wonders whether it’s not just the chemo.

“Maybe my physical activity is keeping my cancer at bay,” he said. “Sometimes I’d be out running and would feel worn down and I would think, maybe this is what is helping me, and I would keep on running. Cancer is so complex.”

In August, the doctors went back in. This time, they think they got 75 percent of the cancer. For now, they’re waiting to see how the cancer responds, Spitz said.

But Spitz managed to resume running this time after just a month. He knows a third surgery likely looms in about a year, so he isn’t making grandiose training plans.

His goal for now is to run the Mini next spring and to set a personal post-cancer record.

Call Star reporter Shari Rudavsky at (317) 444-6354. Follow her on Twitter: @srudavsky.