Quessenberrys brought together by cancer, football

Houston Texans offensive tackle David Quessenberry has never seen his youngest brother, Scott, play a college football game in person, and frankly, he never expected to have the chance.

With 19-year-old Scott, a sophomore center at UCLA, playing mostly on Saturdays on the West Coast, and 24-year-old David’s Texans playing across the nation and almost exclusively on Sundays, the timing and logistics of doing so can be challenging, if not impossible, to figure out.

This weekend, however, David plans to be there at AT&T Stadium outside Dallas when Scott and the Bruins meet Texas on Saturday night.

Truth be told, it wouldn’t be David’s first choice if he had one. He’d rather be in Oakland with his teammates, preparing to face the Raiders on Sunday. Given the developments of the last few months of David’s life, the chance to see Scott play live is not only a welcome distraction from a grim circumstance he never dreamed he’d be facing but also something of a miracle.

A former standout and captain at San Jose State and a sixth-round pick in the 2013 NFL Draft, David Quessenberry was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma in June. He’s currently undergoing the fifth of 10 rounds of chemotherapy that are scheduled to end this winter -- if everything goes according to plan, that is, and so often, with cancer, it doesn’t.

Though David and his family and his countless supporters are confident he’ll beat the disease and return to the football field, the fact of the matter is that no one can be totally certain. And if David does reach remission, that’s no guarantee that the cancer -- especially one as aggressive as his -- won’t return for another bout down the line.

These are all things that are out of David Quessenberry’s control, though, and dwelling on them does him no good. As such, they’re realities he mostly refuses to entertain.

“I don’t really like to think about that stuff because it is a very real consequence,” Quessenberry told FOX Sports this week. “What I’m fighting is a very serious disease. … You do have thoughts of, ‘What if this had happened,’ or, ‘What if that had happened,’ but you try to block them out. You just have to take it day by day, round by round, and that’s how you win the fight.”

Instead, David is using his cancer as a chance to live vicariously through Scott and his other younger brother, Paul, a senior defensive end at Navy. He’s using it as an opportunity to grow closer with his parents than he was before his diagnosis. He’s using it as a platform on which to stand and speak out in the fight against not just his cancer but the afflictions of countless others, just like him.

With so much bad news swirling during the last three months, it’s really all Quessenberry can do to get by. So when his new, uncomfortable, harrowing reality affords him an opportunity to be there for his family and, in some small way, fill that football-shaped void in his own life, you can bet he’s going to take it — an effort that won’t be lost on his little brother.

“I really hope he can make it because it would mean the world to me, and I know it would mean the world to him, as well,” Scott Quessenberry told FOX Sports this week. “I love my brother, and any chance I get to see him is awesome — before he got diagnosed and now, it doesn’t really matter. So it’s going to be a pretty special moment.”

**********

No twentysomething ever expects to be diagnosed with cancer, much less a professional athlete who, at 6-foot-5 and north of 300 pounds, makes his living pushing around other grown men for a living. So you can imagine the shock when Quessenberry learned just how sick he actually was when he was busy treating his disease with NyQuil.

After missing his entire rookie season due to a broken foot, Quessenberry showed up to OTAs in what he felt was better shape than ever, he said, looking to make an impression on new head coach Bill O’Brien and make the 53-man roster. He began to struggle to keep up, a frustrating development as his numbers in the weight room were not progressing in the way he was accustomed.

Away from camp, Quessenberry was battling what he thought was a terrible chest cold. He would wake up in a soaked bed every morning as a result of night sweats and had a persistent cough and phlegm that wouldn’t quit. He didn’t see a doctor but began to self-medicate, taking whatever he could to help him get through the night and cough suppressants throughout the day. The treatment hardly seemed to be making a difference, and eventually Quessenberry began experiencing shortness of breath, as well.

Geoff Kaplan, the Texans’ head trainer, sensed that Quessenberry’s problems were more than a matter of dehydration and sent Quessenberry to be checked out by Dr. James Muntz, one of the Texans’ team doctors. From there, Muntz needed one listen to Quessenberry’s lungs to decide he needed to head to the emergency room, where doctors found that Quessenberry had two liters of fluid in his right lung and a left lung that was not fully expanding.

“An X-ray led to an MRI, the MRI led to a lot of different doctors being called, which led to biopsy, which led to a diagnosis,” Quessenberry said. “I started my first round of chemo on June 6, and we’ve been fighting the fight ever since.”

The news floored Quessenberry’s parents, David Sr., a former Navy captain, and Maureen. The two were on a cruise in honor of the 70th anniversary of D-Day when their son was first sent to the hospital, and perhaps the only thing more frightening than learning their oldest son had cancer was the fact they might not have ever seen him alive again had he tried to tough things out another day or two before getting checked out.

“When it was time for him to come home from the hospital, the doctor said, ‘If he’d gone another day, he probably would have gone into cardiac arrest because of all that fluid in his lungs,’ ” Maureen Quessenberry told FOX Sports.

“Before he got out of the hospital after that first round of chemo, my husband and I went back to his condo in Houston and we totally cleaned it out. We Cloroxed the kitchen and the bathrooms -- you know, you’re bringing a sick kid home that just had chemo and you’ve got to have a clean environment. So we were doing laundry and changing all the sheets on the beds, and my husband kind of looked at me, and said, ‘You know what? It’s a good thing we’re here cleaning all this up and not packing it all up,’ because that very well could have happened.”

A commercial pilot, David Sr., puts the news of his son’s diagnosis and brush with death in aviation terms.

The Quessenberrys take part in 'Relay for Life.'

“It’s sort of like Sully Sullenberger when he took off out of LaGuardia and everything went wrong,” he said, a nod to the pilot who, in 2009, guided an Airbus A320 to a water landing in the Hudson River after the plane lost engine power, saving all 155 passengers on board. “But after everything went wrong for him, everything went right.

“If (Sullenberger) has a partially operating motor in that case, maybe he tries to make it to Newark and then the motor quits and he crashes into downtown Newark or something like that. Instead, he has a river with nobody on it because it’s wintertime, and so everything from that point goes well. It’s the same thing with David Lee. … It’s a double-edged sword, but we’re blessed that people intervened.”

Since receiving his diagnosis, David has gotten treatment both at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and at UC-San Diego back home in California, and his parents have remained by his side throughout. At times, that has meant Maureen, a flight attendant, taking time off work to act as David’s caretaker in Houston, teaching others how to take care of him when she couldn’t be around, monitoring his medication, flushing his PICC lines and taking vigorous notes during meetings with doctors.

“It’s a matter of, ‘This is my son and I’ve got to get him better; I’ve got to fly to Houston and be with him every minute that I can and learn as much about what I need to do,’ ” she said. “Before they released him from the hospital, I had to learn how to flush his lines, and I had to learn how to give antifungal IV medicine at home. I was not prepared for any of that, but once he and I got home and I had to do all of those things, it was like changing a baby’s diaper. Of course I’m going to do it.”

Some of the most important care she provides is emotional, though -- a shoulder to cry on often being an overlooked aspect of recovery.

“I don’t think I’d have this relationship with my son, at 24, if it wasn’t for this illness,” Maureen said. “We have so many tender moments and so many conversations — hugging on the couch and just snuggling up, which normally moms don’t get to do with their 24-year-old.”

“She’s been my rock throughout this fight,” David added. “She has been there for me emotionally, and she goes to the hospital with me and spends those hours with me. I’m the one who is getting the treatments, but she’s there just as long as I am, putting in the work. I’m fighting the fight, but she’s fighting the fight as well. … I think it’s the closest we’ve been because of all the time we’ve spent and how much you learn to appreciate the love we have for each other. I think cancer makes you do that; you realize how many blessings you do have.”

One of the most touching moments in David’s recovery came in late July, when he was discharged from a hospital in San Diego. After leaving the hospital, David chose not to go home to relax but to join a large gathering of family and friends at a Relay For Life event in Carlsbad, Calif. Shortly after David arrived, he was given a purple “survivor” shirt, his parents were given purple “caregeiver” sashes and white wristbands, and the three walked around the track together, arm in arm.

A magical moment for the Quessenberrys.

“It’s something I wanted to be a part of,” David said. “A lot of people had been able to show support for me, and we raised a lot of money for a great cause, and being able to walk with my parents in the caregivers lap, it made me realize how important they are in this fight. You can’t go through it alone, and it was good for me and good for them to know that we’re together in this.”

“It was a miraculous moment,” Maureen added. “We were bawling our eyes out. These people were lined all the way around the track, applauding everybody there that was a survivor. It was the most powerful thing — it caught me totally off-guard, I didn’t know it was going to happen — and then for him to show up five minutes before it happened, it was crazy. It was unbelievable.”

Perhaps the only thing that might top it will be watching David return to the football field, cancer-free.

“It’ll be the best day of our lives,” Maureen said. “I’ll probably cry my eyes out again.”

**********

Any boy who grows up with a brother knows how unique the relationship between brothers can be, and that’s no different in the Quessenberry household.

For David, that meant taking on the role of mentor for Scott, the youngest, and an especially competitive relationship with Paul, only 16 months his junior, that eventually manifested itself in a head-to-head matchup on the field in 2012.

In 2011, Paul and the Midshipmen had traveled to San Jose for a game against David’s Spartans. Paul didn’t play in that game, but it was the only time all three brothers had been on the same field together, as Scott was taking an unofficial visit to SJSU that weekend. The following season, San Jose State packed up and made the trip to Navy, where the two oldest brothers found themselves staring across the line at each other more than a few times.

“It was fun, and definitely different because most of the time, or pretty much all of the time, you’re lining up against someone you’ve never met before, who you’ve never heard them say a word, and you’re in a fight,” Paul Quessenberry said. “Here I was lining up across from my older brother, and I knew everything that there is to know about him. So that was definitely a little weird, but once the ball was snapped, it was game on.”

San Jose State went on to win that game, 12-0 — the Spartans had won the 2011 meeting, 27-24 — in one of the more unique matchups a family is apt to see.

“People said, ‘Who are you going to root for?’ ” David Quessenberry Sr. recalled. “And we said, ‘Well, we’re going to root for a good game.’ I know that’s a cliche thing, but that’s truly the way we approached it. It was a good game, and it was magnificent to see.”

Once David -- known by his family as David Lee -- moved on to the NFL, it gave Paul a more profound respect for his older brother.

“I really realized what he was made of when he walked on at San Jose and earned a scholarship, became team captain, got drafted, went to the Senior Bowl and the NFL Combine,” Paul said of his brother, whose only FBS offer out of high school was as a preferred walk-on at SJSU. “I was like, ‘Dang, he went from nothing to something,’ you know? And I know it was because of that competitiveness and the hard work he put in.”

For Scott, he sees David as more of a mentor, especially given the familial aspect of playing on the offensive line.

“There are always things he can do to help me be a better player,” Scott said. “He’s older, he knows the game better, he knows what’s coming, he knows when it’s coming, and at 19 years old, I’m starting to get it, but there’s still a lot I have to work on.”

Given the bond between the brothers, it goes without saying that the news of David’s cancer was jarring for both Scott and Paul to process.

“My immediate reaction was disbelief, and then it quickly turned into fury,” Paul said. “I was in my room and I was punching the walls and not really knowing what to do. Once that anger went away, I was sad and I was breaking down on my desk, with my homework in front of me, getting real emotional. It hit hard and it hit fast.”

“I was shocked,” Scott added. “My entire life, my brother was someone I could look up to and lean on. For me, he was indestructible, and then they dropped this bomb on us and you’re like, ‘Why him,’ you know?”

The news was equally difficult for David to have to break to his two best friends.

“When you get information, you’re going to share that information that you know is going to cause somebody a lot of stress and a lot of pain — like calling your brothers and telling them that you have cancer — it’s not easy to do,” he said. “But what they’ve been able to do for me has been incredible, just the support that they have. They’re always talking to me, thinking about me, and not just them, but they’ve got their whole teams rallying behind me.”

In addition to giving David helmets signed by each of their entire teams — currently the centerpieces on the Quessenberry dining room table in San Diego — both Paul and Scott decided to dedicate their seasons to David and shaved their heads as a sign of solidarity with their big brother. The idea was inspired by a scene in one of Paul’s favorite movies, “Lords of Dogtown,” and was a small gesture that carried a lot of weight for David.

“It was like, ‘What can I do to kind of help?’ ” Paul said. “There’s not really much you can do except be there and be supportive, because I’m not the one diagnosed. I just wanted to find a way where I could possibly make him feel a little bit better, and I kept thinking back to that movie. I texted my little brother about it, and he said he was already planning on doing it that afternoon, so it just kind of fell into place.”

“That’s one of many things they did to show their support for me,” David said. “But when you do see that and you see the pictures, it makes you realize that they’ve got my back for me no matter what, and I know that.”

And until he’s back on the field, himself, David has dedicated his spare time to making his brothers better football players. Paul often sends David pictures and film of the offensive line he’ll be facing in a given week, looking for pointers, and Scott, who moved from guard to center this season, is always open to criticism from his brother-coach.

“I know that he gets fired up watching us play, watching us do well,” Paul said. “When I went home and visited him in the hospital, he was so stoked to watch us this year. He had already bought all of the TV packages that you need to watch our games that aren’t on big TV networks, and he’s fired up.”

Added Scott: “(Helping us) means a lot to him. He loves the game. Sunday for the (Texans) game, he was up in the box, and he sent me and my brother a text message with a picture of the whole field, saying, ‘Working on my coaching.’ The game is always running through all three of our minds, and we don’t want to let it go. These past two seasons, he’s had to let it go, and it’s been tough, so the one thing Paul and I can do to honor him is just play hard.”

**********

The overwhelming support for David Quessenberry in his cancer battle starts with his family, it by no means ends there. Since his diagnosis, Quessenberry has found backing for his DQ Strong initiative all over the country, from friends, fans, teammates past and present and even complete strangers forging down the same path he is.

David Quessenberry fights with DQ strong.

All of that encouragement makes his reality easier to handle, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’ll be a guy with cancer until he’s not — a long, arduous process that truly does have to be taken one step at a time.

“One of the challenges was once we started looking at the chemo rounds, it’s almost a two-year dance,” Quessenberry’s father said. “He’ll hopefully be able to play again, and this and that, but he’ll actually receiving some sort of treatment for at least two years.

“So he said, ‘How are we going to do this?’ and I told him, ‘We’re not going to “do this.” We’re going to do tomorrow.’ … So we got a white board and sort of laid out what tomorrow’s schedule would look like, and then I told him, ‘Tomorrow will turn into next week and next week will turn into next month,’ and now we’re three months into it.”

Ideally, David will be able to finish up his chemotherapy by the end of the year, and then begin radiation treatment. Once he reaches that point, he’ll be able to start working out again, getting in football shape, but he knows the road to that point won’t be smooth. There have been many bad days and will be many more, but he’s resigned himself to knowing that’s just part of the deal.

“I still struggle with it; I still have challenges with it,” Quessenberry said. “There are some days when I have a hard time just getting out of bed, but that’s all part of it. What I have been able to do is gain strength from others whose fight is going on. I like to gravitate toward survivor stories and get inspiration from them, and then at the end of the day, it’s a fight for your life, and that’s motivation enough. There’s no time to spare and dwell on it. You’ve got to fight this thing with all you’ve got, and one day I’ll look back on it and say, ‘This made me the person I am today.’ ”

If everything goes according to plan, there’s a chance David could be back on the field for the Texans by next season, but at this point he knows better than to get ahead of himself when combating a fickle monster like lymphoma. In the meantime, David and his family still find room for humor despite his situation.

“Last year, after he made the team, Coach (Gary) Kubiak told him, ‘Hey, it’s very likely you’ll be starting for us before the year’s over,’ and the next week he broke his foot,” Quessenberry Sr., said. “Then this year during OTAs, Coach O’Brien mentioned that he was in the mix to be a starter, and the next week he got cancer. So next year we’re going to just ask Coach O’Brien, ‘Hey, let’s just worry about getting to the first game.’ ”

And when the opponent is cancer, living to see another day, getting to support your brothers when they take the field and inching one day closer to another game of your own is about the best you can ask.

“As you hear those words — ‘You have cancer’ — nobody is ready for it, because nobody thinks it will happen to them, especially in the situation I’m in, a 23-year-old kid going into his second year in the NFL,” Quessenberry said. “... Right now I’m taking it day by day, round by round, and that’s the only way we can do it. This fight, it requires too much dedication and focus to be worried about all that stuff, but eventually that day will come.”

You can follow Sam Gardner on Twitter or email him at samgardnerfox@gmail.com.