A Bear in Texan Territory: NFL Player Brings His Biggest Game to MEDVAMC
By Maureen Dyman, Communications Director
In Houston, we take our football seriously. It’s Texans’ country and the fans mean business. So, when a former Chicago Bear came rolling into town last week, you might have expected a cool reception.
But Chris Draft has never needed a hometown crowd to play his best game. The former Chicago Bears Linebacker, a 12-year NFL Veteran who spent his career making his presence felt on some of league’s biggest stages, walked into the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center’s Cancer Survivors Day Event and did what he has always done; he read the room, found the heart of it, and hit it with everything he had.
The Houston VA auditorium was filled with cancer survivors and their caregivers….Veterans who had faced battles that made 4th and goal look easy.
“Everyone here has their own story and their own journey,” Draft told the group. “I’m here to celebrate the fact that each and every one of you are here today.”
A Love Story that Became a Mission
To understand why Chris Draft stands in rooms like the one at the Houston VA, you must understand Keasha.
“Intelligent, strong, fierce woman that just lit up the room when she walked into it,” Draft said of his late wife. With a degree in electrical engineering, Keasha was passionate about dance, devoted to her education and deeply committed to her health. Which is what made her diagnosis even more shocking. While training for a 10K race, Keasha began experiencing shortness of breath. After a series of tests and a biopsy, she was diagnosed with lung cancer.
Keasha was 37 years old. She had never smoked a day in her life.
“We couldn’t believe it could be true,” Draft said. “But it taught me a lesson that I now carry with me into every room I enter: anyone with lungs can get lung cancer, anyone with breasts can get breast cancer….cancer just doesn’t discriminate.”
Eleven months after her diagnosis, Chris and Keasha got married. In a gesture that said everything about who she was, Keasha asked their family and friends to forgo wedding gifts and instead donate to a foundation that helps spread the word that cancer doesn’t discriminate. This is how Team Draft, a foundation dedicated to spreading the word about lung cancer awareness, early screening and research and treatment, was born.
One month after their wedding day, Keasha passed away. In the years since, Draft has turned his grief into fuel, traveling the country, carrying Keasha’s message of hope and survivorship. His own grandfather and uncle, both Veterans, died from smoking-related illnesses, making Draft especially pleased to visit with the Houston VA Veteran cancer survivors.
“Veterans represent the largest subgroup of people diagnosed with lung cancer….often because they started smoking while they were in the military,” he said. “We want to make sure they are aware of the importance of early screening; it truly saves lives.”
Every year, nearly 8,000 Veterans are diagnosed with lung cancer. VA’s emphasis on early detection is changing lives by providing every eligible Veteran with access to high-quality lung cancer screening. With early detection, the survival rate for this type of cancer is high. Lung cancer screening is done with a painless, low-dose CT scan that only takes five minutes. Veterans who are 50 to 80 years old who smoke cigarettes now or have quit in the past year are eligible for early lung cancer screening.
The Importance of Early Detection
According to Dr. Stephen Bujarski, who leads the lung cancer screening program at the Houston VA, the hospital is committed to offering early lung cancer screenings to Veterans and making it as convenient as possible for them. The medical center recently obtained a mobile CT unit that will be brought to rural areas to provide screens for lung cancer closer to where Veterans live. The new mobile unit, currently located at the Beaumont VA Outpatient Clinic, will make it much easier for Veterans who don’t live near a VA facility to get the early screening.
“We will do whatever we can to make it as easy as possible for our Veterans to get these life-changing screenings,” said Bujarski.
While he was at the Houston VA for the cancer survivor event, Draft was determined to check out the facility’s new mobile unit; driving almost two hours each way to the Beaumont VA clinic to tour it. He was thrilled with what he saw.
“I love this,” he said. “Bringing advanced imaging to Veterans in the rural areas is a gamechanger.”
While he was at the Houston VA, Draft presented cancer survivors with white ribbons to let them know they are not alone. Several Veterans and their caregivers were moved to tears by his kindness.
“We’re going to walk with you,” Draft told the survivors. “We know cancer is not just a physical thing….it’s a mental and emotional thing too. You are not alone.”
Draft’s vision doesn’t stop at cancer screening. He is very educated on biomarker testing, targeted therapy, and research. He wants a world where people understand the stakes before cancer shows up at their door.
“The cancer community has to be bigger than just the people who have cancer,” he said. “We need people to care before it happens to them.”
Standing in our Houston auditorium, a Chicago Bear deep in Texans territory, surrounded by Veterans who have stared down some of the hardest days of their lives, Draft wasn’t just giving a speech. He was keeping a promise to Keasha and every survivor in the room. We thank him for sharing his passion and commitment with the Houston VA and our Veterans!