Craig Sager, TNT’s National Basketball Association sideline reporter, has received a rare third bone marrow transplant as he continues his fight against cancer.
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Life is pretty lovely for Craig Sager, and for those of us who get to watch him doing his job on a nightly basis, his fight against this disease is nothing less than inspiring.
His son, Craig Sager II, was the donor for his first two transplants, which put the elder Sager into remission for close to a year each time. This time, an anonymous 20-year-old donor was considered a ideal match. The procedure was expected to take some 10 hours.
CORRECTS FROM MD ANDERSON HOSPITAL TO MD ANDERSON CANCER CENTER -Sportscaster Craig Sager watches the flow of stem cells after starting his transplant procedure Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2016, at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. “It’s very rare”, he said. I’ve had 23 bone marrow aspirations. But Barkley told his doctor that he was faced with an emergency.
Stacy, Sager’s wife, couldn’t be with Sager during the transplant because she caught a cold and could’ve infected the beloved television personality.
Sager has found inspiration in a little girl who lost her fight with cancer before her ninth birthday. Holsworth died of cancer in 2014.
Last weekend, her parents visited Sager in his Houston hospital room. He playfully rolled his eyes at his wife, Stacy, when she chided him for not smiling for a photo where he lifted his shirt to show where the fluid was entering his body in a tube above his left pectoral muscle. “That little girl was so fantastic”. Fought for all of those years, was always positive, always cheerful, always brought other people’s spirits up.
Sager is also bolstered by his drive to be back on the sideline for the National Basketball Association season.
It would be a victory not just for him, but for all the people his fight has inspired.
When you get stem cells they say its your new birthday, Stacy explained. So this is his fourth birthday..
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“It is a big deal”, she said.
