Learning to Thrive

How Bryan Fletcher’s past comes full circle in a brighter future for sick kids

Most 6-year-olds want to fly paper airplanes — not fling their bodies off a ski jump.

And for most 6-year-olds, health scares come in the form of scraped knees — not cancer.

But it was different for Bryan Fletcher. There he was, 6 years old in Steamboat Springs, a cancer survivor with his eyes on the Howelsen Hill jumps that had produced so many Olympians and world champions. He begged and pleaded his mother to let him try.

She said yes. And boy, did Bryan Fletcher fly, not only through the Colorado sky, but all the way to the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships last March in Sweden, where he finished fifth. Another feather in the cap of a bird who knows how to soar and how to score on the course as one of the planet’s top nordic combined athletes.

Fletcher’s hard work has earned him the 2012 King’s Cup win, the 2013 World Championships team bronze and a berth at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games.

But these accomplishments pale, he says, compared to surviving cancer as a kid.

“My whole career has been a question of, ‘How far will I be able to take this?’” says Fletcher, now 29. He remains cognizant every day that 15,000 more kids will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Somehow, through years of treatment, he was able to beat it and become a best-in-the-world Olympic athlete.

“How far will I be able to take this?” says Fletcher of his lifelong pursuit of his passion for winter sport. Photo by Tom Kelly

“It is tremendously humbling, because I know when I was going through cancer, all I wanted to be was a normal kid,” says Fletcher. “To see where I am today makes me realize that I got so much more than to be just a normal kid. I was lucky to grow up in Steamboat where the community is so supportive, where one of the best winter sports clubs in the world is based. I was lucky to have the family that worked so hard to allow me the opportunities to enter skiing.”

Now, he wants to give back. This summer, Fletcher and fellow childhood cancer survivor Gavin Shamis, a junior luge champion, have formed ccThrive, a nonprofit designed to build awareness that childhood cancer survivors can, indeed, thrive.

In 2011, 8-year-old Gavin Shamis was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia — the same as Fletcher. That led to more than two years of daily chemo. Gavin swam to remain active. Then he found luge. Last year, he was named to the USA Luge Junior National Team. He has his sights set on Beijing 2022.

In the summer of 2014, Bryan met Gavin and the idea for ccThrive was born.

“We decided we wanted every kid who survived cancer to have the opportunity to thrive,” says Shamis. He and Fletcher have also since been joined by two more childhood cancer survivors at ccThrive: Lacey Henderson, an adaptive track and field athlete, and Melinda Marchiano, an accomplished dancer.

This summer, ccThrive launched with three elements — building advocacy through inspiring stories, mentoring to help kids achieve goals, and helping those with financial needs through a grant program.

“ccThrive is about keeping the passions and ambitions alive in all children with cancer and helping these kids realize their full potential once off treatment,” says Fletcher. “It doesn’t matter what their dreams are. We are here to help kids who want to do their best.”

A lot about life emanates from fate, he adds. “If I was not in the right place at the right time, who knows where I would have ended up after my cancer diagnosis,” says Fletcher.

His mother, Penny, also loves to tell the ski jump story. Sure, the doctor said young Bryan shouldn’t be undertaking the risk of ski jumping. But every day on the way to chemo they drove by the jumps. And as much as his health and wellbeing were important, so was his happiness.

Ski jumping put a smile on his face.

Soon, Bryan will join little brother Taylor in packing his bags for the winter — off to Ruka, Finland, to start the World Cup tour. Still, every time he slides out onto the bar at the top of a ski jump and looks out over the frozen tundra, he says he will think to himself, “What a lucky young man I’ve been.”