After kicking thyroid cancer last year, Travis Hickman becomes part of
football history

BY DUSTY LUTHY

dluthy@paducahsun.com

It was Travis Hickman who caught Corey Robinson's 78th touchdown pass to break the national single-season record in Lone Oak's Nov. 16 game against Calloway County.

"Honestly, I didn't even know I caught the record-breaking touchdown,"

Hickman said. "I was real worried that they weren't going to call it a
touchdown because I dove for it and my knees were down or something."

Hickman, a senior on Lone Oak's football team, has caught 16 touchdown
passes so far this season with one game remaining in the Purple Flash's
season. Coach Jack Haskins admires Hickman's strength and courage, and
he knows the importance of that one touchdown pass.

"It's kind of ironic," Haskins said, "that here's a guy who catches it
that basically could've not been here if things didn't work out."

A little more than two year s ago, Travis Hickman was diagnosed with
thyroid cancer.

'The C word'

Hickman's mother, Celia, noticed a lump in his neck his sophomore year,
right before Lone Oak's football game against rival Heath.

The test results came back to Hickman's parents on Thursday. They told
him he had thyroid cancer on Friday, the day of the football game.

"I can't imagine being in that position," said John Hickman, Travis'
dad. "Someone walking in and telling you that. You know the tests are
coming back. You get called into the office and there sat your mom and
dad. You know what was up."

The family traveled to St. Louis where Travis, then 16, had surgery to
remove his thyroid, a gland in the neck that regulates hormones.

"It's a cancer that if you can pick cancer, that would be the one,
because it's more treatable than most cancers," said Celia Hickman. "It
was the mere fact that he was young, and the C word."

The cancer was caught early, and the radiation treatments never made
him sick; he was back to football within a month. What was especially
worrisome for the family was that Travis' older sister, Sara Elizabeth,
had thyroid surgery a month earlier. And more than 20 years before, at
just 5 months old, she also had neuroblastoma, a cancer of the nervous
system.

John Hickman said while his daughter's cancer involved chemotherapy
treatments and was perhaps more serious, his son's cancer was harder to
take.

"And what am I going to do?" John Hickman remembers thinking. "I have
to talk to him. I didn't have to talk to that 5-month-old baby. I
didn't have to tell that 5-month-old baby that she had cancer."

Family

As a precaution, Travis Hickman undergoes an annual radiation
treatment. He swallows about a teaspoon of a radiocative iodine
treatment for some body scans, which leaves him radioactive for about a
week.

For that week, he has to sit an arm's length away from other students,
his clothes must be washed separately from those of his family, and
holding babies is taboo.

Hickman, 18, must now take a hormone supplement each day. But the only
physical sign that remains is a thin, reddish scar that spans the width
of his neck.

"When I first found out about it, it was scary," Hickman said. "I mean,
I cried. 'You have cancer;' that's a big word to be saying. I got over
it. I had a lot of support from these guys that were here."

The guys, his Lone Oak football teammates, are now focused on winning a
state title Saturday in Louisville. And while Robinson may get the most
attention, Hickman said the players know they'll win or lose together.

"He throws the touchdown pass," Hickman explained, "but the receiver
runs it in for 20 more yards to make it a touchdown. But for that to
happen, you have your offensive line. It's the only sport when one
person doesn't do his job that the team fails."

Helping each other through tough times has brought the team together.

"They are a band of brothers," Celia Hickman said. "They're one good
group of boys. I know Travis is my son, but I consider all those boys
my family."

Dusty Luthy can be contacted at 575-8662.