Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 2, 1993 TAG: 9308020043
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CAROLYN CLICK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But the smear that Squires placed under the microscope last February puzzled him. He was anemic and his white cell count was dangerously high.
"All the white cells were lymphocytes," he said.
After class, the 24-year-old Brigham Young University senior and teaching assistant began doing a little more sleuthing. The next day, while grading papers for a class, he thought he had his answer.
Leukemia.
Days later, medical tests confirmed his amateur diagnosis: acute lymphocytic leukemia. Doctors told him he had caught the fast-spreading cancer in its early stage, which gave him a fighting chance to beat the odds and survive.
In the thoughtful, deliberate way he conducts his life, David Squires remembers precisely the February day he looked through the microscope.
He says he did not panic, did not begin to reshuffle in his mind the elaborate plans, the timetable he had devised for fulfilling his dream of becoming a surgeon.
"I was looking at it objectively," he said. "I felt pretty confident I was right."
Squires, a 1987 honors graduate of Cave Spring High School, had felt tired for several months, a condition he attributed to his grueling school schedule. He was working long hours to complete his senior thesis, and wrap up the last several months of his pre-med courses.
His mother, Jeannette Squires, remembers how sleepy her son was when he returned home to Roanoke to spend Christmas with his family. When Squires decided to visit medical schools at Duke and the University of Virginia, she agreed to act as chauffeur so the two of them could catch up.
"Every time he climbed into the car, he fell asleep," she said.
So there was some thought - at least on the part of the doctors at the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center - that he should slow down, perhaps postpone his college graduation as he began his first, grueling round of chemotherapy.
But Squires convinced them that if he stayed healthy, avoided infections that sometimes come when the body is bombarded with chemicals, he could complete his studies on time.
He did even more. He graduated summa cum laude in zoology and carried off a top award as the outstanding male honor student at BYU.
"When I first went in, my cancer cells were in the millions," he said. "They couldn't detect any cancer cells after the first eight weeks."
This summer, he is completing his second phase of chemotherapy and plans to enter the University of Utah Medical School in Salt Lake this fall - right on schedule. He has been in the hospital only nine days since his ordeal began.
Squires, who took off two years to work as a Mormon missionary in California, admits there were days when waves of nausea accosted him and he felt as if he could not go on.
But he said his own faith and the prayers of his family and friends have enabled him to face his disease positively.
His tests now show he is cancer-free, but he will have to endure at least four more years of lower-dose chemotherapy to assure that the leukemia cells are totally destroyed.
Squires has had to make adjustments in his headlong rush to achieve his goals. He now sports an "Indiana Jones" hat to hide his bald head knows there will be setbacks as he prepares for the rigors of medical school, internship and residency.
Even more important, he has altered his career path. Instead of training for surgery, Squires believes he would make a greater contribution in oncology, where he would treat patients, like himself, who are battling cancer.
"I think that will give people hope," he said, "to say, hey, I had it and beat it."
Dr. William Fintel, a Roanoke oncologist who has treated Squires during his summer course of chemotherapy, believes Squires has achieved a "nice blend" of acknowledging the link between faith and a positive outlook and physical healing.
Fintel looks at his young patient and sees himself 18 to 20 years ago - a young man driven to succeed in medicine, interested in running and athletics and determined to surpass goals he sets.
"He is so special because he is doing it in the setting of an overwhelming cancer," said Fintel.
But for Squires the disease remains an interloper.
"I was not afraid of dying, but I do want to be here to help people." He pauses. "I'm going to be here for a lot more years helping people."
He won't have to worry about a job when he completes his medical training, Fintel said.
"He better join me in about seven years," said Fintel. "You can tell him through the newspaper that he has a job here."
by CNB