Surviving cancer gives firefighter and EMT another reason to value life

Editor’s note: This is the second story in a series profiling local cancer survivors, leading up to the Relay for Life at Barstow High School on May 17 and 18. The Relay raises money for the American Cancer Society. For more information, call Renita Wickes at 760-447-2079.

BARSTOW — Brian Sheriff saves lives for a living.

Sheriff works as a technician in Barstow Community Hospital’s intensive care unit and as an emergency medical technician in the emergency room. He is enrolled in the nursing program at Victor Valley College, and in his free time, he volunteers as a firefighter and EMT with the Newberry Springs Fire Department.

But at the end of 1998, none of those things seemed possible. It was Sheriff’s life that needed saving.

At 18 years old, he was diagnosed with a rare form of sinus cancer that had almost reached the terminal stage.

For several years, Sheriff had experienced what he took to be increasingly severe allergies. Then one day, after getting hit in the nose while playing with his dog, his nose started bleeding. Two hours later, it did not stop, and his mother took him to a doctor.

One surgery and several doctors later, Sheriff found out he had a cancerous growth throughout his sinuses, in his cheekbones and in his forehead.

The cancer was so far advanced that surgeons nearly had to remove one of Sheriff’s eyes to stop the growth. Sheriff thought his fledgling career as an EMT was doomed.

“Here I am wanting to be an EMT at the time, and to be an EMT, you have to have all the senses you’re supposed to have,” Sheriff said.
Doctors were able to save his eye, and the cancer never returned.

When he approaches cancer patients at the hospital, Sheriff keeps that experience in mind and sometimes shares it with patients.

“It’s a very tricky, fine line, because two things can happen — you can inspire them or you can depress them,” he said. “... I try to empathize with them.”

Sheriff said he tries to be careful not to give patients false hope, knowing that their cases may be terminal. Instead, he might tell them simply to keep a positive attitude and never give up.

Newberry Springs Fire Department Assistant Chief Steve Miller said he sees an extra measure of compassion and maturity in Sheriff because of his experience with cancer.

“I see it in his caring level and the degree that he understands and empathizes with a patient,” Miller said. “When you face death like that, life becomes more precious very suddenly.”

When his own father was diagnosed with cancer a little more than a year ago, Miller said Sheriff was one of the first people he went to for advice on what doctors to go to for treatment.

His ability to relate to patients and his experience in the fire department may serve Sheriff well in his future career. He is completing the nursing program at Victor Valley College and wants to be either an intensive care and emergency room nurse or a flight nurse, working with patients as they are airlifted to the hospital.

Sheriff walked in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life for the first time the year after his recovery. Since he began working at the hospital five years ago, he has walked in the Relay with his coworkers.

Although he won’t be able to make it this Saturday, being busy with clinical experience that is required by his school, Sheriff’s thoughts will be with the survivors.

Contact the writer:
(760) 256-4123 or abby_sewell@link.freedom.com