Benefield: Heart of a Dragon (w/video)

Early last spring, Mikey Seelye committed to a plan. He committed to himself.

He wanted to do more, be more, for his Sonoma Valley High Dragons football team. He needed to lose weight, build muscle and get fit to do that.

He dropped “dirty whites” from his diet and shed 80 pounds from his frame. He ran. He lifted. When early season practices rolled around, he was ready.

Seelye didn’t know it then, but the battle he was preparing for wasn’t earning a starting lineman spot with the Dragons or a fight for Sonoma County League supremacy. It was - it is - a battle for his life.

Seelye, 17, discovered a lump in his neck after a particularly grueling practice in August. He waited a couple of days before saying anything to his parents. When he did, his dad found a second lump. The diagnosis? Stage 2 cancer. Hodgkin lymphoma. It got worse. Tests about a week later revealed Seelye wasn’t stage 2 but stage 4 - the disease not only was in his lymph nodes but around his spine, abdomen and armpit. The Seelyes, being the Seelyes, were thankful. Thankful it hadn’t reached Mikey’s bone marrow. Thankful the doctor told them Mikey’s journey would be grueling but that the disease was curable if tackled correctly.

“I figured that my senior year would be my prime year for football,” Seelye said. “I was working out every day, eating very healthy, running most days of the week. I was toning out and working out to the best of my ability trying to get into the best shape I could. When football started and everything happened - it was more than I wanted to deal with.”

This is the part where most people would be compelled to ask “Why?” Or “What if?” Why Mikey? What if he didn’t get the diagnosis?

But there is another “What if.” What if Seelye’s love of the game, love of his Dragons, didn’t inspire him to work his tail off for months on end? What if he hadn’t lost the weight he didn’t need? What if he wasn’t as strong, fit and healthy going into the most grueling thing he’ll likely ever have to deal with?

“I feel that my body and my health is way stronger than it ever was and I feel my chances and my strength are just way better than they ever would have been before,” he said. “At first, I felt that all the work I had done was for nothing. But you can’t look at it like that.”

At least Seelye can’t.

Dragons coach Bob Midgley calls Seelye a remarkable kid. His composure in the early days was striking.

“Me and the coaches were looking at each other - he talked like he was talking about someone else,” Midgley recalled of Seelye’s letting his teammates know why he wouldn’t be wearing No. 66 this season. “If I had to tell anybody, I would have been bawling, even at this age. He wasn’t.”

Seelye isn’t naive. He knows what’s in store. His mom, Kelly, battled the same form of cancer about eight years ago. His grandmother fought cancer and his aunt is enduring it today. He knows the score. When Seelye’s doctor gave Mikey and his parents the diagnosis on the eve of a vacation, he made sure the strapping kid was sitting down.

“He told me to go on vacation and enjoy my time with the family because I was getting ready to embark on something no one my age should go through,” Seelye said.

Since that day, Seelye has undergone four days a week of chemotherapy treatments in Oakland, with some sessions lasting eight hours. This week, he had surgery to fix the port in his chest.

His energy is fading a bit. He’s missed a few practices. He can’t high-five or hug his teammates like he used to for fear of contracting a simple thing like a cold that would wreak havoc on his system.

But football has been there for him. Midgley was the first person, outside of family, who Seelye called when he learned he had cancer.

“He was my coach and throughout this whole time, football was like family to me,” Seelye said. “Midgley has always been looking out for me.”

Midgley is not alone in those duties.

The Dragons have rallied for their teammates. Players - JV and varsity alike - have shaved their heads. Principal Kathleen Hawing let the team take clippers to her head. She’s now bald. The Petaluma High football team gathered funds to buy Seelye his letterman’s jacket with all the fixin’s. An online giving campaign has been established through Gofundme.com. Local businesses have donated proceeds and someone the Seelye family doesn’t know donated a laptop computer so Mikey can complete his studies from home while going through treatment.

“I feel blessed. I really do,” Seelye said. “I feel blessed to have people in my life - my friends, my family, my team. I am honestly at a loss for words. I don’t know how to express myself. It makes me tear up thinking about it.”

Kelly Seelye says the family is doing everything they can to make a life turned upside look just a little bit like normal. For Mikey, that means football - being there when he can and hearing about the Dragons when it’s too much for him to actually make it to the field.

“I think his football team has taught him strength and motivation and to never give up,” she said. “I think that is a driving force for him. He loves his football team.”

The feeling is mutual.

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com and on Twitter @benefield.