Two weeks before Adam Nicola-Iott was to graduate from Western Michigan University, he went for a core biopsy to help figure out why he was having recurring back pain. The doctor assured him it was mainly just to rule things out and that he had less than a 5% chance of it being something serious. A week later, his doctor told him he had cancer that had metastasized throughout his bones and that it was incurable.
The week after that was graduation.
“This is a celebration, come with a smile,” Adam said as he explained the plans for graduation day to his still reeling from shock, brokenhearted family. Through sunglasses, teary eyes, and a sometimes much-forced smile, Adam’s family celebrated his graduation, just as Adam wished.
Before the diagnosis, Adam had accepted a job in Chicago, found an apartment to share with a good friend also planning to live and work in Chicago, and finally had a future that looked exciting enough to leave behind the college years he had loved so much. His parents were relieved; they thought he would never leave college. It had taken Adam five years to graduate from WMU, but he didn’t mind. He couldn’t understand why anyone would want to hurry and graduate, because to him, college living was the best. Putting his ideas in writing, with correct syntax and spelling, was challenging for Adam, but being the social director for his fraternity, managing a band, assistant managing a restaurant, and being a rep for an energy drink company came easily. He loved every stage of college: he enjoyed living in the dorm, he loved the move to an apartment, he was proud to live in the Sigma Chi Fraternity house and especially loved decorating it for Christmas. And, of course, even though he loved college, he never missed an opportunity to get away for spring break. Adam truly enjoyed the entire college experience.
Adam was able to enjoy the majority of his five years in college as a healthy student. But as he plodded along through his various treatments, often more taxing than the disease itself, he commented on how difficult it would have been to balance life as a student with a cancer diagnosis. He imagined how difficult it must be to worry about paying tuition and health care expenses and how there probably would be little time, energy, or money left for fun. He had commented to close friends about how it would be nice to make life for college students battling cancer a little bit easier. He thought it would be great to help them with their tuition, books, or rent. He also wanted to make sure students with cancer had money to have fun doing things like spring break trips and fraternity formals. These were the very things Adam enjoyed during his time at WMU and was able to fondly reminisce about during the last few years of his life.
With the Adam Nicola-Iott Scholarship, a student battling cancer will receive funds, as Adam wished, to be used to enable and/or enrich the college experience.
By Sharon Nicola and Alex Nicola-Iott (Sept 30, 2013)