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'I can beat this'

By GREG AUMAN
Published January 28, 2005

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Bradley Mosley was scared, facing fears he had never imagined. The South Florida basketball player's stomach pain had turned out to be something far more dire: cancer.

Mosley had left the team in October with what turned out to be renal medullary carcinoma, a rare form of kidney cancer with no known survivors.

But Mosley had three things in his favor: early detection, his condition as a top-level athlete and access to an elite cancer center.

And two months after the diagnosis, Mosley's odds are more favorable. Doctors are encouraged by the way his body has responded to five rounds of chemotherapy.

"It took a toll on him," said Lisa Ferguson, his mother. "He was down. He wasn't doing any talking. It was hard to get things out of him. Now that he sees he's getting better, he's changed a lot. He's getting out, he's eating more, he's answering the phone more."

Not long after the diagnosis, Mosley dropped from 185 pounds to 139. Despite chemotherapy, his appetite has returned, and he's at 155 pounds and gaining.

"At first I was kind of scared," said Mosley, speaking publicly about his illness for the first time. "They tell you nobody has ever survived what you have, you know?"

Mosley first felt an uneasy sickness one afternoon in October. It was the second time the Bulls would be timed in a 1-mile run, and he had eaten fast food an hour earlier, so he wrote it off as indigestion, a bad cramp.

When the stomach pain returned and heightened days later, Mosley called his mother in Riviera Beach. She told him to go to the emergency room. When he wouldn't, she called coach Robert McCullum, who called Nikki Curski, USF's head athletic trainer.

A CAT scan showed a mass in his kidney, fluid in his lungs and swelling in his lymph nodes. RMC, which presents itself in young, male African-Americans who have the sickle cell trait, which Mosley carries. Doctors say as few as 35 cases are known.

Since the diagnosis, Mosley, 21, has had chemotherapy every two weeks at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, and the cancer that had once spread through his body is limited to one kidney. His doctors hope to remove the kidney and potentially take the cancer away as well.

Mosley, a shooting guard who started every game as a junior, is becoming a regular part of the Bulls again.

"I think my presence, the guys get more motivated when they see me around. They say they play harder," he said.

Players designed the patch on their uniforms just below their left shoulders. It reads "B-Mo," his nickname among the players, and "12," his uniform number.

One of his biggest motivations has been the thought of returning to the court, of not only getting healthy but getting back in uniform. If his progress continues, he could seek a medical redshirt for next season, if necessary, and play his senior season as late as 2006-07. He's already doing things he wasn't supposed to be able to do, he figures, so why stop now?

"Keep my shoes,' he told (the equipment manager)," McCullum said. "Have them ready for me. I'm going to need them."'

- Greg Auman auman@tampabay.com

[Last modified January 25, 2005, 11:42:02]