A huge mass was spotted in Dapkey's upper chest, severely compressing his larynx. The 17-year-old was immediately transported by ambulance to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "I knew something was terribly wrong," Rita Dapkey said.
The following afternoon, with Dapkey's family by his side in the intensive care unit, Dr. Spencer Sullivan, an oncology fellow at CHOP, revealed the diagnosis to him: acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
Dapkey's first question for Sullivan? Not surprising, it wasn't about the survival rate for those with ALL, a cancer of white blood cells and the most common leukemia in children.
"I asked him, 'Can I play football this year?' He said, 'Most likely not.' That's when I got really upset," Dapkey recalled. "I wanted to punch him in the face. I was really, really mad."
Dapkey first experienced some of ALL's symptoms (there is an 85 percent survival rate) several weeks earlier: fatigue, ear infection, headaches, and shortness of breath.
"I never really said anything about it," he said. "I thought it was a sinus infection or something like that. As a football player, you take a suck-it-up approach and keep going."
Dapkey would have been an outside linebacker and wide receiver for Neshaminy, which began its season Friday by defeating Souderton. He has been passionate about football since he was a fifth grader.
That passion intensified for "Little Marco" while growing up in East Lansdowne, where one of his neighbors, Upper Darby High standout and future University of Minnesota linebacker Simoni Lawrence - known in the area as "Big Marco" - used to knock on the door and ask to borrow his Madden game.
"He was one of my role models," Dapkey said. "At Upper Darby, he was a beast as a running back. I remember him bulldozing defenders."
