A father's fight for survival.

Byline: Tim Christie The Register-Guard

No matter how the cards are cut, Dirk DuBois is facing long odds.

Men his age aren't supposed to get prostate cancer. Not when they're 32, strong as a horse and married with two young daughters.

But two years ago, DuBois was diagnosed with late-stage prostate cancer. Now 34, the Eugene resident is fighting for his life and putting all his chips on an experimental treatment that's so radical, it may not be approved.

"I've been dealt a bad hand of cards," DuBois said. "All I know is to play them. I hope I got an ace or two in the hole."

DuBois (pronounced da boys) is part of an extended family of teachers: His wife, Erin, teaches second grade at Irving Elementary School - the same school where his mother, Sharon, taught third grade for 20 years. His father, Phil, taught for 31 years in Eugene. His sister, Brandy Wormdahl, teaches math and coaches girls soccer at North Eugene High School.

Until his illness kept him home last December, DuBois taught physical education and health at Briggs Middle School in Springfield. It was a job he loved and one that he excelled at.

"The kids really like him," said fellow Briggs teacher Margaret Stevenson.

DuBois, who coached Thurston High baseball for four years, said he was a "decent" athlete at North Eugene High, lettering in football, baseball and track. He stayed in shape after high school, jogging, lifting weights and teaching PE.

"I've been athletic all my life," he said.

That's why both he and doctors were so stunned when he was diagnosed in May 2002 with stage four prostate cancer, meaning the disease had spread beyond his prostate and into other parts of his body.

"At that time I was pretty well blown away," he said. "Every doctor we went to was just floored."

Prostate cancer is exceedingly rare in men as young as DuBois. The chances that a man will develop the disease before 40 are one in 12,883; those odds drop to one in six over a lifetime, according to the National Cancer Institute.

DuBois, his wife, and their two daughters, Adison, 5, and Caylin, 3, moved in with his parents about a month ago so they could help out with his care. On March 1, he had hip replacement surgery after the cancer had eroded the bone.

As DuBois' condition has worsened and his treatment options dwindled, a network of friends and teachers has rallied to his cause.

Starting from scratch at the end of January, the group organized a spate of fund-raising events: A 5-kilometer fun run drew about 200 participants March 6. The Gateway McDonald's and Papa's Pizza have shared proceeds with the group on special fund-raising nights. On Sunday, the Springfield Elks Lodge turned over its facility for a Texas Hold 'Em poker tournament expected to raise $7,500.

More than 200 individuals and businesses have donated to the Dirk DuBois Fund, including donors in Washington, California and Colorado. An anonymous donor in Seattle contributed $5,000.

They've raised $40,000 to date, with more fund-raising events planned. Their hope is to raise enough money - an estimated $200,000 - so DuBois can get an experimental treatment called a mini bone marrow transplant at Oregon Health & Science University.

If DuBois is not able to get the operation, the committee plans to donate 20 percent of the funds to the OHSU cancer program to help other families. The remaining 80 percent will be put in a trust fund for his two girls' college education, Stevenson said.

Doctors at OHSU say the mini bone marrow transplant has been used with mixed success for kidney cancer, but never for prostate cancer.

The procedure is so experimental, however, and its risks so unknown, that the university may not allow it, said Dr. Tomasz Beer, a medical oncologist and director of the prostate cancer research program at OHSU's Cancer Institute.

"We're working hard to make it happen, but there are a number of hurdles to overcome, and it may or may not come to fruition," he said.

A scientific review team at the cancer institute will scrutinize the procedure to make sure it's scientifically sound and has a reasonable chance of success and safety, Beer said. Then it must be reviewed by the institutional review board, a federally mandated group that reviews all human research at OHSU.

If those hurdles are cleared, then a suitable bone marrow donor must be found for DuBois, Beer said.

The procedure itself is on the cutting edge of cancer therapy, and is a twist on the most aggressive type of cancer treatment - a bone marrow transplant.

A conventional bone marrow transplant is done so that the patient can be hit with a massive dose of chemotherapy. The dose is so high that it wipes out the person's bone marrow, and so a transplant is needed to restore the marrow.

In a mini bone marrow transplant, the intent is to use the transplanted bone marrow, not the chemo, to attack the cancer, Beer said. The patient receives a small dose of chemo to slightly weaken their immune system so the bone marrow is not rejected.

"Your cancer has evaded your immune system," he said, "but perhaps someone else's immune system will recognize your cancer as a foreign invader and attack."

The DuBois family suggested the approach after learning about it on the Internet, and Beer and other OHSU oncologists agreed to see if it was feasible. But the treatment remains rife with unknowns, Beer cautioned. One risk is that the new bone marrow may attack other parts of the body, not just the cancer, for example.

"It's really kind of a shot in the dark," he said.

It remains the only shot DuBois has.

"He has no other options. He wants to try it," said his wife, Erin.

In a best case scenario, he would get a mini bone marrow transplant sometime in the next three months. Then it would take at least another six months before doctors know whether it's working. Erin DuBois said her husband may not survive long enough to get the treatment.

Hope and courage are about the only sure things DuBois has left at this point, but it's enough to inspire his friends to do what they can to fuel that hope.

"He taught me the meaning of courage," said Brad Harper, a friend since childhood. "He has the fight like no one I know - the will to live."

DIRK DuBOIS FUND

To find out more, call Mike Riplinger, 744-6350, Linda Eastgate, 689-9131, Brenda Winger, 686-4693, Linda Wormdahl, 688-8973 or visit www.dirkduboisfund.org. To contribute, write to Dirk DuBois Fund, Pak Mail, 1056 Green Acres Road, Suite 102, Eugene, OR 97408. Upcoming fund-raising events include:

Garage sale and Krispy Kreme sale: 9 a.m. Saturday at North Eugene High School

Papa's Pizza fund-raiser: Tuesday, March 30, 4261 Barger Drive, Eugene

Golf tournament: 4 p.m. Friday, April 9, Springfield Country Club

CAPTION(S):

Adison DuBois (left), 5, and Caylin DuBois, 2, play in the front room of their grandparents' Santa Clara area home. Please turn to SURVIVAL, Page A6 Kevin Clark / The Register-Guard