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ORONO – The tables have turned, and now the resident who friends say always was there to lend a helping hand to others is the one who is getting the help.
Five months ago, Dan Placzek, 56, was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. Doctors have given him six months to live, but Placzek says he is determined to stay positive.
“My inside feelings are that somehow this is going to turn around, and I don’t know how or when, but it’s because there are so many friends who are thinking and praying for me,” Placzek said Thursday at his home.
Old friends and the many people in the Orono area whom Placzek has helped through the years have rallied around him during these difficult months.
“I hate asking people for help,” Placzek said, becoming emotional.
“Which is silly because he’s always been there to help everybody else,” Placzek’s life partner, David Cox, said.
Placzek’s major claim to fame occurred during the infamous 1998 Ice Storm. He was one of the volunteers who climbed up the WVOM-FM tower to chip ice from the structure so that the radio station could remain on the air.
He also has given back to the community as an active volunteer and two-year board member for the Eastern Maine AIDS Network.
“You don’t do it because it’s in vogue, but you do it because you want to,” Placzek said.
According to friends, Placzek always is there to help friends and neighbors, but now it’s his turn to be on the receiving end.
“I would pray and ask for something, and someone would come and offer it within 24 hours,” Placzek said, wiping his eyes. “Sometimes it’s not always about money.”
Numerous people from Orono as well as Placzek’s friends have come to his aid in a variety of ways during his illness.
“I know I’m going to forget somebody’s name, and it’s not fair,” Placzek said. “There’s just too many.”
One of those people who has responded is Cox, who has spent much time away from his own home in Searsport to care for Placzek.
Cox, 34, came to Maine from California to take care of his grandmother, who had hip replacement surgery in 1998, and also to attend the University of Maine in Orono, where he is majoring in microbiology.
He met Placzek at a friend’s house in Bangor, and the two began talking about scallop diving. Placzek had been diving since 1981, and Cox recently had completed a diving course at UCLA. The two worked together on Placzek’s boat during the next scallop season and have been companions ever since.The cancer has left Placzek with little energy and it’s difficult for him to climb the stairs to his bedroom. Orono residents Howard Weldon, of IM&M One Stop Home Repair, and Bob Jankowski, of Harley the Plumber, volunteered time and supplies to help turn a downstairs room into a bedroom and bathroom. Placzek had begun to refinish the space as a guestroom five years ago, but hadn’t completed the work. The room should be finished next week.
In addition, Weldon and two other Orono friends, Gary Parent and Dan LaPointe, have been providing Placzek with a nontraditional type of energy therapy called Reiki.
“There’s no magic pills here,” Placzek said.
After he endured seven weeks of intravenous chemotherapy, called Gemzar, a CAT scan showed that the treatment had not worked. Placzek was feeling better, but the cancer had continued to spread.
A pill treatment was attempted, but that too failed to work.
“In two months, cancer stole 25 percent of my body weight,” Placzek said. A new therapy, however, has brought some relief to the former University of Maine football guard and linebacker.
“The thing about the drugs is the best they can do is improve the quality of life or extend life,” Cox said.
Doctors have run out of pharmaceutical options, but Placzek says the Reiki is helping. Placzek began the therapy two weeks ago and has since regained about five of the 40 pounds he had lost.
“I’m just so happy,” LaPointe said. “This is wonderful that we can help a friend like Dan.”
Whether it’s Ted and Rosemary Curtis of Orono helping Placzek tie up legal aspects, Brian Harvey and his son of Glenburn stopping in to mow the lawn and pull weeds, or Placzek’s parents, Fred and Rose, calling from Massachusetts to check in on their son, Placzek said he appreciates it all.
“Sometimes that’s all people can do is call,” Cox said.
“But that’s all I need sometimes, because their voice perks me up,” Placzek said.
Although the Cancer Center of Maine at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor has run out of medical options, Placzek and Cox said they were pleased with the “fair and unhospital-like” treatment they received there.
“This is just an example of people coming out of the woodwork to help me,” Placzek said. “I never realized how many friends I had.”
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