Stephen Garcia is recovering from a successful surgery to remove cancer from his colon and liver — but it’s a position he never expected to be in before his diagnosis with Stage 4 colon cancer earlier this year.
“Stephen is out of surgery. In the ICU. Surgeon called and said all the cancer is out!!!! thank you for all the prayers!!!,” the former star college quarterback’s wife, Masha, wrote in a Facebook post on Sept. 22.
“PS earlier tonight I said the cancer is out. Stephen has stage 4 cancer and is not officially cancer free. It’s going to be a long journey with surveillance. Thank you again for your love and prayers.”
She added in a post the next day that he’s still in the intensive care unit but “(on) the road to recovery. Stephen is a fighter.”
Garcia, who played for the South Carolina Gamecocks, first learned he had cancer in April. And his first cancer symptoms were subtle, he told the TODAY show in a Sept. 14 segment.
“I had some sporadic stomach pain, you know, (I) was going to the bathroom often, just wasn’t ever fully emptied,” said Garcia, 38. But it got “to the point where my wife was like, ‘What are you doing in the bathroom?’” he added.
He got an ultrasound that revealed lesions on his liver, and a colonoscopy later confirmed he had cancer in his colon.
Garcia is among a growing group of young people diagnosed with colorectal cancer. In recent years, experts have seen a dramatic rise in the number of people diagnosed with this type of cancer under the age of 50, doctors told TODAY.com previously. And these patients tend to be diagnosed at later stage of disease.
The diagnosis was “was definitely a shock,” Garcia said, but his instinct wasn’t to give up. “I wasn’t going to sit there and be like, ‘Well, I guess I’m done,’” he said. “You know, it’s like, ‘All right, what are we gonna do? What’s the game plan? How are we gonna beat this thing?’”
After some tears, Garcia and his wife, Masha, started making a game plan. He called the father of one of the young quarterbacks he coaches, who is also a cancer surgeon.
The call was exactly what Garcia needed.
“He was just like, ‘You’re going to grow up to see your grandkids,’” Garcia recalled. “And he’s a straight shooter. … When he told me that, you know, it was a pretty big boost of confidence.”
Garcia then began an aggressive course of chemotherapy and radiation treatment, followed by surgery.
The couple has found strength in sharing Garcia’s story, and they’ve started Quarterback Your Health, a foundation to support others living with colorectal cancer.
“He is brave,” Masha Garcia said. “Being this open with his diagnosis, men do it in silence. They don’t want to talk about it. No one wants to talk about it. And he was just so open.”
For Stephen Garcia, the outpouring of support has been “kind of shocking,” he said. “The fact that fans still care means a lot. And I hope they truly understand that. It means the world to me.”
And his openness has already inspired those around him: His brother recently had screening and had two precancerous polyps removed.