Committing World War III on my Body

Quiet chatter and the smell of ground coffee beans fills the back room of the Aspen Coffee Co. on Western Street in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Rusty Gosz makes his way to the table in the corner where I’m sitting, stopping to talk to several people along the way.

He asks two girls how their classes are going this semester. He firmly shakes a man’s hand and asks how his job has been treating him lately.

Gosz’s sincere care for others is obvious to the people around him. However, an outsider wouldn’t be able to tell this cancer survivor apart from anybody else.

Gosz is Oklahoma State University’s youth livestock specialist and an Oklahoma Youth Expo and Tulsa State Fair swine committee member who was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in early 2019.

“He always is very positive in all the situations and looks for the best possible ways to handle any situation that we are in,” said Jason Harvey, an OYE and TSF swine committee member and Gosz’s co-worker. “[Gosz] always has the kids at the forefront of whatever he is doing.”

Gosz has a drive to invest in the realm of livestock and agriculture, which comes from his faith as a Christian, said Rose Bonjour, an OYE and TSF swine committee member and Gosz’s co-worker. His eight kids are another testament to how much he loves the younger generations, Bonjour added.

Gosz is always professional but has a layer of energy and an overall fun personality he dedicates to the people around him, Bonjour said. He adds a little lightheartedness to the group, she added.

“He always, generally speaking, has a good energy level about, ‘Hey, we need to do this, we need to go, go, go,’” Bonjour said.

Gosz loves his job working with the youth of Oklahoma, Bonjour said.

“He is kind of naturally a people person and a people pleaser and just someone who really loves people,” said Heather Gosz, Rusty Gosz’s wife. “But kind of at the core of that is he loves people as a Christian.

“That’s how he believes God would have him treat people,” she added.

During the Christmas season in 2018, Heather Gosz insisted he go to the hospital because he was unwell for a while, Rusty Gosz said.

On Jan. 17, 2019, he was diagnosed with stage three colorectal cancer at the age of 45.

Finding out about the cancer and the beginning of the treatment process is blurry, Rusty Gosz said. No one expected him to have cancer, he said.

The shock came because he didn’t have any of the symptoms a usual cancer patient had, Rusty Gosz said. Dr. Thomas Swafford, a local doctor in Stillwater, Oklahoma, gave Rusty Gosz the news, he said.

“[Swafford] was hitting the table going ‘you shouldn’t have this,’” Rusty Gosz said. “I was totally in agreement with him. I should not have this, but I did.”

Two weeks after his initial diagnosis, he went back to the hospital for more scans, he said.

Other than the cancer appointments and treatments, a big struggle was to figure out who would stay with the kids, Heather Gosz said. She was a stay-at-home mom who wanted to be with her husband but also wanted to be with the kids, she said.

Numerous people volunteered to stay with the kids while they were away for appointments, Heather Gosz said.

M.D. Anderson and many other hospitals made up the medical district in Houston, Rusty Gosz said. While waiting for his appointment, Rusty Gosz and his wife went looking around.

“A couple of hours before our first appointment, we walked around the downtown Houston medical district, and it was largely children’s hospitals,” Rusty Gosz said. “It just struck us that, ‘Wow, I’m glad it’s me.’”

They were blessed none of their kids were being treated for cancer, he said.

Soon after, Rusty Gosz moved to Houston for six weeks of radiation. His temporary residence was 2 miles from the hospital, he said.

He then went back home to Stillwater, Oklahoma, for two months to recuperate as best as he could, Rusty Gosz said. After the break, he had the first major surgery, he said. Excluding open heart surgery, Rusty Gosz said his surgery was probably one of the most invasive he thought someone could have.

The goal of the surgery was to remove all cancerous tissue and the surrounding areas while leaving what is needed for bodily function, Rusty Gosz said. For the next six months after, he received heavier doses of chemotherapy treatment, he added.

In all, he had four three-week cycles of chemotherapy.

While receiving the chemotherapy, he felt like medications were enough for horse and cattle doses, Rusty Gosz said. He added the chemotherapy was injected through a chest port or swallowed as a pill.

“It’s this balancing act of, you’re taking a poison to kill the cancer and you’re on this fine line of kill the cancer without killing the person,” Rusty Gosz said.

He was rushed to the hospital before he could complete the third cycle, he said. For the next six weeks, he just survived, Rusty Gosz said. After so much, his will to live kind of died, Rusty Gosz admitted.

Rusty Gosz said this was the hardest time during the cancer battle. He was not himself at all, he said.

“I would go to bed at night and kind of go ‘Well, I wonder if I’ll make it,’” Rusty Gosz said. “I would wake up at 2:30 in the morning [and say], ‘Huh, I made it.’”

He climbed out of the fog, went through more scans, and had another surgery to “put him back together,” Rusty Gosz said.

The pieces fell into place gradually, Heather Gosz said. Even more scary for them was knowing one of Rusty’s good friends died of brain cancer the year before, she added.

“It probably ended up being more scary than I even thought it was going to be to begin with,” Heather Gosz said.

She didn’t realize how hard the chemotherapy was going to be on her husband or how sick he was going to get, Heather Gosz said.

Going through cancer treatments was hard, but Rusty Gosz said he gained a good friend through the process. Rusty Gosz met Donnie Darr, OSU assistant golf coach and colorectal cancer patient, through a mutual friend, he said. Rusty Gosz described Darr as a lifeline for him.

Darr was at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston going through treatments before Rusty Gosz got there. Their connection helped both Rusty and Heather Gosz grasp what the future cancer treatments would look like, Rusty Gosz said.

Both men had a year of chemotherapy and radiation along with three surgeries, Rusty Gosz said.

“We pretty much committed world war III on our bodies, and it worked,” Rusty Gosz said. “Both of us came out with, at this point, no evidence of the disease present.”

One of the challenging tasks of recuperating was changing the way he ate, Rusty Gosz said. He added that fiber-rich foods were harder to digest but other foods weren’t as troublesome.

He said he is not in remission yet, but he is getting closer. The next year or two is the time for building the body back up, Rusty Gosz said. If his scans are clear for five years, the doctors might then say he is in remission, he added.

Throughout all of the changes, Rusty Gosz said cancer affected him more than physically.

“You go through something like this and your perspectives change,” Rusty Gosz said. “Certain things become more important than they used to.”

A little thing like a sunrise glows brighter than usual, Rusty Gosz said.

“I think I’ve always celebrated life, but I took a lot of things for granted that I just don’t anymore,” Rusty Gosz said. “And I’m dying to eat pizza again.”

Sidebar:

The medical bills add up, Heather Gosz said.

People at OYE lent a hand with a “Kiss the Pig” fundraiser, Bonjour said.

The fundraiser allowed Rusty Gosz’s co-workers to use their playful rivalry to help with the financial side of the cancer treatments, Bonjour said.

Heather Gosz expressed her gratitude for all of the help the livestock industry provided to support their family.

Photo of Rusty Gosz by Todd Johnson.

Other feature articles in the magazine:

Waiting to Start Up

Once Upon a Time

NOTE: The Ag Youth Magazine has said farewell since the publication of this article. Because of this, the final layout is no longer viewable online.