Paul Henderson Hoping For A Miracle

From Dan Robson of Sportsnet Magazine:

Paul Henderson sits at a bare table in an empty room with an intravenous line in his arm and a grapefruit-sized tumour in his abdomen. For the past two hours, a translucent yellow liquid has drained slowly into his bloodstream from a bag that hangs next to him on a stand.

It's a vitamin-based treatment he has received at this health clinic in Toronto's west end since he was diagnosed with lymphocytic lymphoma chronic leukemia in November 2009. The weekly dose is intended to bolster his immune system and slow the cancer creeping through his body.

"It's in my abdomen, my chest, my lymph nodes and my blood," he says.

Still, you have to look closely to see the effects of the disease. He's lost some weight over the past few years, his face is thinner, his clothes a little looser. But his dark grey hair remains thick and curly. His skin is tanned from a recent vacation. A strict diet and constant exercise have kept up the appearance that he is just another aged legend, not a man who has been told that, at best, he has less than a decade to live.

"I just refuse to worry, or get upset, or be fearful," he says. His soft voice doesn't waver. "It doesn't do one particle of good."

Here's the full story.