Jim Kelly is fighting for his life, fighting a treacherous battle with cancer that continues this week.
In a detailed story by Sports Illustrated’s Monday Morning Quarterback, Kelly details his battle, the ups and downs, and his refusal to give in to the disease, a cancer of the upper jaw known as squamous cell carcinoma.
“There is no way I’d be here without my faith,” the Hall of Fame Bills quarterback said from his Lenox Hill Hospital room. “It’s been such a roller coaster. So many things. The Super Bowl losses, the fabulous career, my son born sick, making the Hall of Fame, my son dying, two plates and 10 screws in my back after major surgery, one plate and six screws in my neck after another surgery, a double hernia, the cancer, surgery on my jaw, the cancer coming back, now what I’m facing.”
Last June, part of his cancerous upper jaw was removed by doctors. He received a prosthesis of six fake teeth and bone, fastened into the hole left by the surgery like a large retainer. Still, painful headaches persisted.
“The normal person wouldn’t have been able to take it,” Kelly said. “Some days, I don’t know how I did. I’d look up to the Lord and say, ‘I give. Uncle. You got me.’ ”
The cancer had returned, and its proximity to the carotid artery makes it inoperable. Kelly, 54, begins arduous treatment this week. Chemotherapy Monday and Tuesday followed by radiation Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Dr. Peter Costantino, Kelly’s New York oncologist, said his condition is “very treatable and potentially curable” last week.
“If he’s saying it, I hope so,” Kelly said, “I just know there’s a lot of work to do, to shrink the cancer. I just pray it works. If you hear I’m about to have surgery, then you know it’s working. That’s the goal. But it won’t be an easy operation.”
Kelly spent 11 seasons with the Bills and led them to four consecutive Super Bowl appearances in the early 1990s, only to lose them all. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2002.