| Jean & Bob Roos |
Jennifer Roos is a high-energy person, going forward at 100 miles per hour every day in her job as the
associate head coach for Bowling Green’s women’s basketball team.
When she learned that her father, Bob, had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer just before the start of
the 2008 Mid-American Conference tournament, it hit her very hard. And after the Falcons were knocked
out of the tournament by Ohio University, Roos was very emotional, not only because the team did not
reach its goals, but because it was very unclear about what was to lie ahead for her father, who was 63
at the time.
"It made me realize that basketball was definitely secondary. It puts things in perspective in a
hurry," Roos said.
After an extensive surgery and a year of recovery, Bob Roos was told he was cancer-free in June 2009.
He and his wife Jean have resumed their travels in following the Falcons and their only child, Jennifer.
"My mom and he come to a lot of games and throughout the (2007-08) year, he would wake up in the
morning and have a cup of coffee and all of a sudden, five or 10 minutes later, he would throw up his
sip of coffee," Roos said about her father. "Or at dinner on Friday night before a Saturday
game, he would always throw up, maybe the first bit of his meal, but then digest the rest of it.
"He said everybody throws up at least one time. No we told him, ‘you have to get it checked
out,’" Roos continued. "Carbonation seemed to help relieve it, so we also thought it might be
acid reflux, something like that. But after multiple tests, his family physician, who is actually a
fraternity brother of his, came back and said no, this is what you’ve got, we need to proceed from
here."
What Bob Roos had was a cancerous mass at the bottom of the esophagus.
"I went to worry right away, because that type of cancer we knew nothing about as a family and the
name alone did not sound good," Roos said. "We were actually told by the doctors not to look
on the Web for any information, because that particular cancer treatment changes so rapidly, that
anything that was on the Web was going to be outdated.
"We were told, you were going to read more horror stories than positive stories or you were going to
read about past treatments that are no longer being used."
Roos said her father was the first of an experimental program, regarding new techniques for the surgery,
new techniques for drug treatment, timing of chemotherapy and timing of the use of particular drugs.
There were some encouraging signs along the way.
Part of the funding for the new treatment was coming from the Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation.
The Roos family was well aware of Minnie Pearl from watching the television show Hee Haw. Jennifer Roos
had actually bought her mother a Minnie Pearl hand fan when the Falcons were on a riverboat cruise as
part of a trip to Nashville when BG played Belmont and Lipscomb in November 2007.
"We kept looking for anything, because we were unclear. We knew of no one with it. We had never
heard of it before and we were told not to look on the Internet," Roos said.
Also, Louisville, Ky., the Roos family hometown, is known for having one of the best cancer research
hospitals in the country in Jewish Hospital.
The surgery was scheduled for June 20, 2008, about two weeks before Roos was to hit the recruiting trail
for the Falcons. She took a week off and because of a shortage of nurses, mother and daughter took turns
on 12-hour shifts, watching over Bob after the surgery.
The surgery entailed removing the mass, removing some of the esophagus, and removing part of his stomach
and then reattaching all of them together. The surgery lasted just under seven hours.
"They had to cut him open on the back, flip him over and then cut him open on the front, so he
looked like someone took a machete to him," Roos said. "It’s gross. We tell him all the time
to put his shirt on.
"The doctor was very confident after his surgery, they felt like they had gotten everything."
Jennifer said her mother was a trooper through the whole process and probably the most emotional of the
family, which is ironic because Bob is usually the most emotional of the three.
"The most taxing on the two of us was after his surgery. He didn’t know who he was. He didn’t know
where he was. He thought someone was trying to kill him. He couldn’t walk. The stress of that week was
the hardest," Roos said. "The different drug combinations he was on, no one could tell us, hey
he’s going to be crazy and literally not know where he was, who he was.
"We had a TV in his room and there was an episode of Murder She Wrote was on. We had grown up
watching that during dinner on Sundays. That next day and the next night, that’s when he thought that
someone was trying to kill him. The nurses, my mom, me.
"I told my mom, the TV doesn’t go on anymore."
Now after the surgery and the ensuing treatments, Bob Roos is cancer-free.
"He’s the poster boy for this experimental group. And now they use this treatment non-stop,” Roos
said. "Now his doctor gives out my dad’s name to other patients that have this particular type of
cancer and they can use him as a resource É He’s been a great sounding board for a lot of people.
"He took it all in stride even though we had to learn without anyone to guide us. There was never a
doubt that he won’t beat it."
One positive from the surgery was that Bob lost about 75 pounds.
"He’s just as sarcastic and funny as ever," Roos said.
