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The Fresh is gonna kick this thing right in the ass thread

BelmontShore said:
Hey Guys. How is everyone?

There have been a few times over the last couple of months I had Mike pop into my head. When it happened about an hour ago, I checked to see the last time Mike was active on PhilaPhans. When I saw the date, I shuddered because I knew.

So the 1st thing I did was come here to scour the site for any news and obviously, this is what I've found. My worst fear confirmed and I am profoundly sad to know what has happened.

Mike was so brave, so strong and so positive about his fight that he gave you the feeling he would beat it, even though reality of what he faced was so dire knowing the numbers. He was always so brutally honest about what he was going through, so forthcoming, it inspired both admiration and incredible dread at what he was facing.

This thread is a truly harrowing read. In some way, I imagine it was cathartic for him, but for the reader? It's 5+ years of the most inspirational, heartbreaking, scary and even funny at times dialogue. At times, you find yourself with your head in your hands wondering how he endured. But he did, with grace, dignity and a huge fighter's heart.

RIP Mike.

My condolences and best wishes to his wife and family for their loss.

- ron
Click to expand...

QFT! Thanks Ron!
 
If any of us had any brains we’d turn this thread into a movie and make millions and then give it all to Mrs. Fresh.

It would be an inspiring story. What a stud Mike was. And now he is in paradise.
 
God I miss Mike, especially during the season. He used to tell me "I allowed myself a pain pill tonight and am having a beer with Suzy by the pool". My God Mike you're dying and you're worried about one friekin pill??? Went to the loading dock everyday for half the day until 2 weeks before he passed. He just wouldn't quit. He just wouldn't quit .
 
Some genuinely touching sentiments expressed by Belmont Shore. This particularly hit home with me... "Mike was so brave, so strong and so positive about his fight that he gave you the feeling he would beat it"

I'm not unfamiliar with the course and prognosis when one has stage 4 lung cancer. Mike's body was not only ravaged by the disease but by the varied chemotherapy regimes and especially by the repeated episodes of radiation therapy. (Quite honestly, Mike's immeasurable bravery and dogged unwillingness to concede an inch shamed me because I knew, even if I were much younger and in good shape like him, I would have tossed in the towel.)

And yet, except when he was "talking" on this thread specifically about issues related to the cancer, his presence on EFO was indistinguishable to me from the Mike we knew before he learned how ill he was. The devotion to our Birds, the keen football insights and the sharp, self-deprecating sense of humor never varied.

For very personal reasons which I explained to Mike, about 6 months before he died I pretty much stopped posting on this thread. It was selfish of me but it was something I needed to do. I maintained contact with Mike via PM, especially regarding the promising advances in the treatment of lung cancer with immunotherapy.

Looking back, all this enabled me to believe that somehow Mike was actually going to beat this vile bastard...foolish old man that I am.

EFO is just much different without Mike.
 
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A FB memory popped up today about Mike's passing. Thought it was appropriate to bump our old friend back to the top and into our thoughts. Been 7 years and I'm sure we all think of him
 
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