BEATING THE ODDS; PEPPERDINE'S SANCHEZ RECOVERING FROM BRAIN SURGERY.

Byline: Lee Barnathan Daily News Staff Writer

Lacey Sanchez was afraid to visit her dad and scared to touch him. The sight of Frank Sanchez lying in the hospital bed with tubes running through his body terrified her.

In August, Frank Sanchez underwent his third brain surgery. The left side of his face and much of the right side of his body were paralyzed.

He couldn't breathe and talk at the same time. He dragged his right foot when he walked. He drooled. He couldn't sleep without choking.

Frank Sanchez, the 46-year-old father of a 3-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son, a husband for 10 years and the baseball coach at Pepperdine University, could not swallow.

But he knew he would.

``I didn't start screaming. I didn't start yelling,'' he said. ``I didn't go through the `Why Me?' I figured, `Let's regroup.' ''

Sanchez has.

Obstacles remain; he still suffers facial paralysis and he chokes periodically. But some baseball normalcy has returned - he helps with watering and dragging the Pepperdine infield, and once he starts pulling weeds, he can't stop.

More importantly, he is leading his Waves in their season opener at home against Nevada on Friday.

``I'm not a pretty sight now, but I'm light years better,'' he said. ``There comes a time when many of us are down and out. You have to battle.''

Preparing for the worst

Sanchez has had a benign brain tumor since 1984. His previous surgeries, in 1985 and 1990, failed to remove the tumor, so it continued to grow. Doctors told him he needed the third surgery last summer.

``I had no choice,'' he said. ``You try to prepare without thinking negatively. I made sure my life insurance was squared away. You don't know how it will come out.

``I used to run with the kids, play with the kids and walk the dog. I told them, `Daddy's going to be sick for a while.' I tried to prep them.''

Before each operation, doctors warned Sanchez and his wife April of the possible complications, yet the first two surgeries resulted in nerve damage so minor it was hardly noticeable.

The third surgery, performed Aug. 17 at USC University Hospital, lasted 11 hours and appeared to end like the others.

Sanchez remembered awakening in the recovery room being able to blink, swallow and hear. He even propped his head up and said to an attendant, ``Can you give me something for my head?''

Thirty minutes later (his doctors told him afterward), he awoke again, but in an intensive care unit. He knew something was wrong.

In fact, plenty was wrong. The swallowing reflex, which every healthy baby has at birth, was gone.

``The first instant, I remember trying to assess my state of being,'' he said. ``I figured out what my quality of life will be.''

It wasn't going to be great.

``It was devastating to see this strong, physical, athletic man reduced to that,'' April said. ``I cried a lot, tears of uncertainty and sadness.''

In the hospital, after Frank began rehabilitation, April saw an old man sitting in a wheelchair sleeping. Then she walked into her husband's room and saw the same scene.

Facing a new crisis

April expected this surgery to end like the others, and she planned to take off just a week from her job as a Valencia elementary school teacher.

She was emotionally shaken, but Frank never wavered in his belief he would, eventually, recover. He left rehab after about 10 days, on Sept. 8.

Yet Sanchez still could not swallow and, finally, sought an experimental treatment in Ohio.

The treatment center, operating since 1995 out of Mayfield Heights Community Hospital, deals with patients suffering from a variety of illnesses, including strokes, Parkinson's, ALS and cancer.

``It's not exactly the kind of stuff that happened on `Marcus Welby,' '' said Marcy Freed, one of the founders and speech therapists at Mayfield Heights.

Freed said Sanchez was a typical case.

Each day for the approximately two weeks he was there as an outpatient, Sanchez received electrical stimulation in the throat to strengthen the muscles.

Twice a week, Sanchez had a 3-foot long and 2-inch wide garden hose-like tube put down his throat, then pulled up after a minute. Freed said Sanchez couldn't swallow because a sphincter muscle in the back of his throat didn't open and close. The insertions stretch the muscle and allow it to open and close normally.

Patients usually take anesthesia, but Sanchez couldn't. Earlier, when Sanchez had his stomach tube removed, his heart stopped. Freed said doctors feared the anesthetic would stop his heart again.

``It's not a fun thing,'' Freed said, ``but for the minute of traumatization, it's worth it. He had to do all of them (without medication), and let me tell you something: That takes guts. It tells you how badly he wanted to swallow.''

Returning to the field

Soon, Sanchez could drink.

It was Oct. 20. Sanchez came home and returned to work, little more than two months after his surgery and having missed just two weeks of fall practice.

Friends who visited Sanchez were amazed at his condition, but not surprised by his progress.

USC coach Mike Gillespie, who had Sanchez as his assistant from 1985-95, said he couldn't imagine anyone returning to work just two months after such serious surgery.

``The way he has faced it, (it's) never an `Oh, poor me' attitude,'' Gillespie said. ``He's been remarkable in the way he has not allowed this to defeat him.''

The first time his players saw him, they were shocked at Sanchez's appearance. Dan Bir, the Waves' starting right fielder, said it broke his heart.

``To see him in the condition he was in, it was tough,'' Bir said.

Catcher Mike Kramer said he didn't think there was any way Sanchez could come back. The baseball team had to be the least of his worries.

So to have Sanchez in the dugout Friday is, as pitcher Brad Tucker said, ``Courageous, inspirational, all those type of words.''

Bir knows. He broke a bone in his left hand in the last summer-league game. At first, he was upset at the prospects of missing fall ball and starting the season out of shape. Then his father reminded him of Sanchez's battle.

Bir woke up and tackled rehabilitation with new gusto. He is expected to start on Friday.

``I remember his first day back. He told us of how he'd take the extra step,'' Bir said. ``So I did it, too. I'd do the extra rep or put on some extra weight.''

Sanchez continues to recover slowly. He has regained four pounds. Choking episodes aren't as intense. His children don't fear him. His wife teases him when he wobbles around the house.

The latest and best news came in December. An MRI exam revealed the possibility doctors removed the entire tumor. Sanchez said he has never seen his neurosurgeon that excited.

But after three surgeries, the Sanchezes prefer to wait before they join that excitement. Another MRI is scheduled for June.

``We're very hopeful,'' April said, ``but we've been told it wouldn't bother him for a long time, so we're cautious.''

Frank added: ``I'm saying my prayers that they got it all. If not, then you've got to prepare.''

SANCHEZ PROFILE

Name: Frank Sanchez

Age: 46

Hometown: Valencia

Record at Pepperdine: 66-47 (2 years)

Previously: USC assistant coach (1986-96), Hart High coach (1982-86; 110-47-1, four Foothill League titles, Southern Section AA runner-up in 1982)

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, Box

PHOTO (1--Color) Pepperdine baseball coach Frank Sanchez, who had his third brain surgery in August, is looking forward to the season.

(2) ``I didn't start screaming. I didn't start yelling. I didn't go through the `Why Me?' I figured, `Let's regroup.' ''

- Frank Sanchez, Pepperdine baseball coach

Tom Mendoza/Daily News

BOX: SANCHEZ PROFILE (see text)