The first couple of checkups turned up no tumors, but by the third checkup the tumors were back. They moved to Minnesota to seek help at the Mayo Clinic, where the diagnosis was changed from chondrosarcoma (slow growing) to chondroblastic osteosarcoma (fast growing). Rather than amputate his leg, he elected to try chemotherapy, a decision he later regretted. The tumors were so powerful that they actually grew resistant to the chemotherapy. Nine months later, doctors took the leg at the hip.

But three months later, the tumors were back, and so a pattern began. Every time tumors were removed, they returned with a vengeance.

They took the leg. They took part of a lung. They took part of his spine, part of a vertebra, part of his intestines, part of a rib, and so it went as the tumors progressed up his back. In all, he underwent 22 surgeries during his 5 1/2-year battle. At one point they removed a football-size tumor from along the spine.

"They were whittling away," says Terryl. "They'd always say they got enough margin on (the tumor), but they'd always come back."

Mark Robison, Draney's track coach at BYU, recalls, "I'd ask him how he was doing, and he'd say, 'OK, but I was in the shower this morning and found a couple more tumors.' They'd grow like lightning."

The pain and suffering he withstood was intense and was increasingly debilitating. At one point near the end, surgeons left an open hole in his side through which food would exit, bypassing his clogged colon completely. (By then, he was eating only for taste.) A visitor could see directly into his stomach.

Last year surgeons were reduced to merely "de-bulking" tumors in his back — unable to excise the tumors completely, they cut them back as much as possible. "They just did this because David was starting to look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame," says Carol. "David didn't want the tumors to get so big that they would bust his skin open like they did" to one of his friends he met in the hospital. Surgeons removed so much tissue from his back that they had to rebuild it with the aid of Gore-Tex and fashion a turtle shell-like back brace for support.

Just an update on us. David is doing better. He bounced back from his stomach surgery and his bladder infection. Yesterday, David had another surgery on his back to de-bulk his tumors. It went well and he came home the same day. His liver isn't functioning correctly though. We thought it was from his TPN (IV nutrition) so we adjusted it a week ago but his labs came back worse this week. Therefore, they think his cancer is affecting his liver. — Carol

It must have been especially galling for Draney to watch his body be deconstructed piece by piece. He was a superb all-around athlete who treated his body like a church inside and out.