Tiffany Hecklinski's Cancer Battle

Behind every great man is a great woman.

I am sure coaching football is hard enough, then to have a real life problem like this must make things really hard on the homefront. Thoughts and prayers are with her and the family as she continues to get better.

Thanks for posting. Puts things into perspective also. Not only do we have great coaches, we have great people for coaches. Between all the wives help, the coaches themselves, etc. plus the hospital can't think of many places that would be better than Ann Arbor.

Thanks for posting. This article speaks so well of both Tiffany and Jeff Hecklinski, but it also speaks well of Hoke and the entire staff.

As a parent, I can tell you this is a mother's worst nightmare. I salute Tiffany's great courage, and her family's support. And of course the U of M's Healthcare System - so lucky to have that great support system as well.  

Something Meinke left out of the article but put in the comments really stood out to me:

Jeff Hecklinski told me something that didn't make the story, but really touched me ... he said the hardest part about this wasn't the pain, but it was, for the first time, the foundation of his life was threatened. You sometimes take things for granted, that things will be just how they are, that you will build a life with someone and love that person and live happily ... but then all of the sudden, your wife and the mother of your children has to go through something like this? It changes the way you look at life, you know?

It's good to hear that they had such a great support system. The "family atmosphere" everyone is always talking about.

She is obviously a strong person and wish her a lifetime of remission.

I gave Coach Heck credit in another thread for the recruiting class before reading this. Now I think his results are Herculean. Amazing under the pressure in his personal life.

This story is incredible and speaks not only to the strength of the Hecklinski family, but to how great the people associated with UM and this coaching staff are.

"Tammy Volmar, wife of associate athletic director Mike Vollmar, accompanied Tiffany to chemo sessions. Lorrie Mallory, wife of secondary coach Curt Mallory, and Shelly Wellman, wife of strength coach Aaron Wellman, prepared meals. Natalie Montgomery, wife of defensive line coach Jerry Montgomery, shuffled the kids where they needed to go. Laura Hoke, wife of Brady Hoke, escorted Tiffany around town and to appointments. She was "just a rock." - from the article

First and foremost, thanks for sharing this article. Very, very touching.

It is great to see that the family atmosphere that the coaching staff has created has in essence made them and their own family one large extended Michigan family, helping each other to this extent. This wonderful sense of community is something that not only makes the program itself that much better, but the players and people associated with it as well. There have been other articles posted here as well about how the staff involves their families and tries to provide for work-life balance, but this story shows you that they absolutely are about these things, I think. As someone said, we have great people for coaches in addition to great coaches.

knowing that Coach Heck was going through this, Dantonio is lucky he didn't get curb stomped last winter when he interrupted him.

Dantonio wasn't one of them.

As someone who lost his mother-in-law to cancer, almost a year ago, I hope she contines to win that battle, every day. Cancer is the worst, especially the types that don't respond to any treatment (pancreatic, in my case). Life is tough enough without having to worry if a disease (or the treatment) will take you before your time.

FUCK CANCER!

Somebody must have vacuumed and stirred up a bunch of dust particles and what not.  Good piece.

Lost her sister to cancer last week, just a few days before Thanksgiving. The funeral was the day before the holiday. She had battled for three years before cancer took her life. My friend's sister died on her husband's birthday. Her husband also died of cancer just a few months before she, herself, was diagnosed. They left behind two young daughters.

Cancer is ugly. The disease is hideous and the treatment - which is absolutely the best we can do - is only marginally better. 

One of my favorite authors and polemicists was Christopher Hitchens. After being diagnosed with esophogeal cancer, he wrote of "living dyingly":

One thing that grave illness does is to make you examine familiar principles and seemingly reliable sayings. And there’s one that I find I am not saying with quite the same conviction as I once used to: In particular, I have slightly stopped issuing the announcement that “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

 

With all of the other, shall we say, less important things posted on this board, that article is certainly worthy of our time.  The greatest part of this story is that Tiffany Hecklinski never stopped fighting, that she is still there to be a mother to the children and a wife to her husband, and that she is now going on the offensive to help fight this ugly disease.  As many others here, cancer has heavily impacted my life in a variety of ways.  My wife (at that time good friend), was told that her mother would not be alive to see her graduate from high school.  Cancer having run in her family - already taking the life of a grandmother and great aunt - the outlook was rather bleak.  Now, many years, surgeries, and treatments regimens later, her mother is happy and healthy as could be.  I hope I never have to endure what so many people have to go through in their fight against this disease.