Christine Massaro, like many, is inspired by Zack Latteri's story. Facing her own health issues, Massaro opens up on how she has decided to take charge of her recovery and Fight Forward.

PAY IT FORWARD: That is the motto of the Zack Latteri Foundation, a local charity dedicated to honoring the memory of Pascack Valley student Zack Latteri who passed away after a courageous battle against Leukemia. Zack’s family and friends started the foundation a few years after he passed, and PV immediately incorporated this cause into their ever-growing Benefit Games. 

(For more on the history of the benefit games at PV and IHA, here is A LINK to an article by an excellent student journalist, Noah Reiser, the lead sports editor for the PV Echo.)

FIGHT FORWARD: I never met Zack Latteri, but his story has impacted me profoundly in ways that I never actually expressed until I sat down to write this article. Know that writing this proved difficult, but I owe it to Zack’s legacy to share how he inspired me through a health scare. I always write my articles about other people, so this is new territory to me to share my own story. I hope you’ll take the time to read. 

Exactly a year ago, at PV for the Zack games, I coached what could have been my last game ever, unbeknownst to me. I was on the operating room table 2 days later with a ruptured spinal cord lining, which had caused a massive cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) leak. When the surgeon opened my spinal cavity for the sixth time (and second time in 6 weeks), the amount of CSF that rushed out unexpectedly caused my vitals to drop. From what I’m told, they had to stabilize me first before attempting to repair the dural tear, and unfortunately, the doctor could not completely close the tear.  See, he was expecting a small puncture like a pin prick, but what he encountered (due to a lack of an MRI before surgery) was a 7cm gash in my spinal cord lining.

I should have been on bed-rest; should have been in the OR sooner; should have never been coaching that game--which I might add, the esteemed Mr. Cory Doviak of northjerseysports.com pointed out to me that day when he asked “what the hell are you doing here if you’re going back into surgery Tuesday?”

My answer was simple--my doctor said it’s fine to teach and coach it’s just a small leak and a quick patch procedure like a flat tire. Cory insisted that I really should be home resting, particularly because I was experiencing such blinding headaches upon standing that I was sometimes fainting and had taken on a greyish color. I had horrible ringing in my ears anytime I stood or sat, almost like someone set off a grenade next to my head.

Having been with someone who had served in Afghanistan and lost part of his hearing from an IED explosion next to his humvee, I don’t say that lightly or compare my experiences to war--I simply recognize the same symptomatic ringing and hearing loss and pain. My pain and ringing wasn’t from something as dangerous as war. Mine came from my brain slamming into my skull every time I stood up, as the CSF fluid leak would gravitate down and out of the gash instead of protecting the brain and spinal cord as it’s supposed to. The blinding headaches, the fainting, the tremors, the nerve jolts--the surgeon assured me this was normal recovery from spinal fusion (it was not).

But back to Zack, who really deserves the credit and attention in this story. Zack--a kid I never met. Zack--a 4th grader who battled Leukemia so bravely and strongly that he somehow survived up until he entered high school. Zack, whose foundation says to pay it forward, inspired me with a new phrase that day. FIGHT FORWARD, Christine. I would say it in my head every single day, particularly the 4 days post-op when I couldn’t/should’t/wouldn’t so much as move my head. 

Every hour that I lay in that inhumane chamber called “flat bedrest”, hooked up to the torture device into my spinal cord sheath known as a lumbar drain, unable to move, not sure if I even could move if I wanted to, I told myself that even though right now my current condition didn’t allow me to move even an inch for 4 days, I was going to MENTALLY fight forward.

So ask yourself--what would you do if you were flat on a hospital bed staring at a flickering fluorescent industrial hospital ceiling tile light from Tuesday to Saturday without the ability even sit up. You can’t see the tv, you can’t lay on your side, and even if they took all the tubes out of you, you may not be able to walk now, or for a few weeks, or ever again-- they weren’t sure, it was too soon to tell.

At that realization, I thought of Zack and his choice as a 4th grader to FIGHT. Again, I never met him, but his legacy strength is such that it inspired me mentally to accept my current circumstances and not yell. Not scream. It would be futile, painful. You just have to lay there for 4 days and learn to mentally pass the hours, the minutes. I remember thinking that compared to what the Israeli hostages were currently enduring, l didn’t have it that bad.

I thought of Welles Crowther, the 9/11 hero known as the Man in the Red Bandana, and how much strength and courage he showed in his FIGHT to save over a dozen strangers. I thought of Tyler Trent, the Iowa superfan whose battle with cancer as a college student caught national attention on ESPN before his untimely passing. I just remember thinking of all of these sports heroes like Zack and Welles and Tyler, and reminding myself that my situation was not the “c” word, was not terminal. I survived, and I would FIGHT like hell to get my life back.

“Sometimes, the hardest days are the most important days,” something that Tyler Trent taught me.

Again, like Zack, a kid I never met was inspiring me as I lay in that hospital bed staring at the same exact ceiling tile for 4 days. You learn a lot about yourself in those times. It was like Copernicus and his “Conversations with God.”

I talked to God, asked Him for healing. I asked Zack and Welles and Tyler to give me strength. I talked to my loved ones who have gone before me and asked them to intercede on my behalf and beg that I could walk again. It took another 10 days of bed rest at home, but I started to slowly walk again with a walker. Then without it. I couldn’t walk outside due to the ice on the ground, but I made sure to walk around the house as much as I could. I needed to do something mentally, so I worked daily in my home office at my desk to execute my responsibilities as newly-elected position on town council.

I watched livestreams of Old Tappan basketball games. That saved me. It gave me a purpose. While I missed another month of school and basketball, I slowly worked myself back into that mix again, too. But there was a lingering lesson from those Conversations in the hospital bed.

“You can do anything you want, but you can’t do everything you want.” -Brian J. Dunn.

The irony is that his poignant advice to a teenager struggling to balance too many commitments would ring true to me all these later and cause me to have to take a step back from full-time coaching responsibilities. I can’t be at Town Council on the dais and be on the sideline for a game when they are simultaneously occurring. I can’t skip physical therapy to go to basketball practice. (Shout out Northern Valley Physical Therapy in River Vale for getting my legs back under me and always “having my back.”) I can only do so many things in a 24-hour day, and most days, I need to rest my back and legs after a day of teaching before venturing back out at night for my town meetings. That meant making the hard decision to step back from full-time assistant basketball coach.

Nobody was more supportive than Brian Dunn, who understood my decision and only quipped “Are you in witness protection or something?” when he noticed he hadn’t heard from me in a while during my recovery. He was equally supportive this fall, the night he won yet another football state group championship, when I texted him congratulations, you’re the GOAT, etc. and one more thing--I wanted to still be involved with OT basketball, I was coming out of retirement. I would be around, when I could, if he was alright with that.

After playing for him, and coaching with him, we didn’t need a lot of words exchanged to convey our understanding of a volunteer coaching arrangement. I would be back in some capacity for my 20th year coaching Old Tappan basketball. 

So here I was Sunday, one year later after nearly losing it all, back at the Zack Latteri Games, inspired yet again by Zack’s story. The games are played on Jeff Jasper Court, named after legendary coach Jeff Jasper, who has over 1,000 wins in his career and has received state and national recognition. But on my personal ledger, the number that far surpasses that win total, and makes more of an impact, is the number of people I come across who he has mentored as a teacher, coach, and friend.

Take, for example, his tutelage of Brian Dunn, who started his teaching and coaching career in the PVPH district and has accumulated multiple football and basketball state championships. Their friendship is at the heart of the Benefit Games, as The Games helped raise autism awareness donations in honor of Dunn’s son, Thomas.

“Coach Tom” is a staple on the OT football sidelines now as a young adult. Look, also, at the friendship of Coach Jasper and fellow PV staff member Kenny Sarajian, who are the gold standard of the long gold line at PV. Those 2 guys checked on me pretty much every day when I was recovering. Sure, OT-PV is a sports rivalry, but that didn’t matter to men of such high character. The amount of respect they have always shown me, even before my surgeries, was what welcomed me into the coaching fraternity.

Dunn, Jasper, Steve Silver at IHA--these are all the guys who coached when I was in high school and are still around today stacking ‘ships. They are the ones who put together The Benefit Games (Silver, a class act, again hosted at IHA this year for a foundation honoring a 9/11 victim). In high school, I played against Jasper and Silver’s teams. Those were always the competitive rivalry games back in the old NBIL.

At the end of the day, it’s just a game; but paradoxically, it’s more than just a game. It’s The Games. It’s Zack’s story, 10 years after his passing, inspiring someone he never met, from a rival school, to fight forward every day. Some things are bigger than sports. So today as you read this, whatever you are battling, fight forward, and to return the kindness that surrounds you in your good days and bad, pay it forward. 

Christine Massaro, for northjerseysports.com

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