Amir Steinberg is a junior in pre-med studies at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a recipient of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center's Children's Art Project scholarship.
Ad meyah ve esrim.
Until 120.
It's a Hebrew saying, attributed to the prophet Moses. It means live life to the fullest, to age 120, as Moses did.
For 21-year-old Amir Steinberg, a junior in pre-med studies attending The University of Texas at Austin on an M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Children's Art Project scholarship, the saying comes to mind often. It means a lifetime ahead to reflect, teach, qu estion and make decisions.
Three-and-a-half years ago, Steinberg was a senior at Bellaire High School in Houston when he developed Hodgkin's disease, a type of lymphoma that attacks the body's lymph system. At 17, in November 1992, Steinberg became a statistic.
He still carries in his wallet photo identification cards from the University of Houston that show the effects of the disease: his neck swollen, wearing baseball caps to hide the effects of chemotherapy and radiation.
It is obvious Steinberg was not well when the photos were taken, but he says only after being diagnosed did he notice the swelling and understand something was wrong. "I never got sick. I was an Iron Man, like Lou Gehrig,'' Steinberg says.
The most common symptom of Hodgkin's disease is a painless swelling in the lymph nodes in the neck, underarm or groin. The disease is rare, accounting for less than one percent of all cases of cancer in the United States. It is most often seen in young p eople, especially those in their 20s and 30s, but it can occur at all ages.
Dr. Arthur Hamberger, a family friend who had headed the radiotherapy training program at M. D. Anderson in the 1970s, diagnosed Steinberg as having Hodgkin's disease and sent the high school senior to M. D. Anderson for treatment.
Steinberg had been cruising through his senior year with few cares one minute. The next, he was facing cancer. He considers this time his defining moment. The cancer gave his life a new focus.
"It separates me from everyone else,'' Steinberg says. "I used to think I was invincible or invulnerable. Now I think I can never go back to who I was before."
Now he wants to be an oncologist at M. D. Anderson. That's his primary dream. Sometimes he also thinks about being an astronaut, or getting a law degree and becoming an anti-tobacco lobbyist in Congress, or perhaps a high school history teacher.
But the dream of being a doctor never wavers. Time is of the essence. Until 120. Ad meyah ve esrim.
"It made me realize how important one's health is," Steinberg says. "I took it for granted. Now I realize other people's plight. And sometimes I think, 'wow, maybe I got it for a reason Ñ to be a cancer doctor.' "
Steinberg is always asking questions, and then answering them in the same breath. A handsome, hazel-eyed youth, he is well-mannered, painfully honest, concerned about social issues, and articulate. He reads constantly, and is continually thinking abou t his studies and his actions, even when alone "shooting hoops" at his Austin apartment.
His heroes: Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. It is no coincidence they are the faces on Mount Rushmore. Time has proven their greatness. Like them, Steinberg prefers " to see America on top."
His favorite subjects, besides the required sciences, include American diplomacy since 1900 and European history. He maintains a 3.79 grade point average, and, in late April, took the Medical College Admissions Test, which includes questions on biology and organic chemistry, general physics and a verbal section. On tests of this nature, he says, unlike perhaps other pre-med students, he prefers the verbal part.
For the summer, Steinberg was named a recipient of the Michael E. DeBakey Summer Surgery program at the Baylor College of Medicine, where he accompanies surgeons during their daily rounds and observes surgery. He has reapplied for his Children's Art Project scholarship ($1,750) at UT-Austin.
The Children's Art Project's Pediatric Scholarship Program has provided 319 college and graduate school scholarships to former or current cancer patients since the program began in 1985. An increasing number of the recipients pursue health ca re professions.
A total of 41 scholarships for $132,000 - 36 undergraduate and five graduate Ð were awarded this year. Some of the scholarships were for $3,500 and some for $1,750 or less. Also, some of the recipients attended junior colleges with their awards. As many as 10 more undergraduate scholarships have been added for the coming school year.
"People may think I wanted to be a doctor because it ran in the family," Steinberg says, " but that's not true. It is my own dream."
Steinberg works hard to achieve it. He has devoted the last three years to make the grades to get into medical school. But he realizes, no matter how devoted he may be, there is no guarantee of success.
"I'm a plugger. Some people are more gifted than I am, maybe they don't need to study as hard as I do. I'm happy for them," Steinberg says.
Dr. Fredrick B. Hagemeister, the M. D. Anderson oncologist who cared for Steinberg, told him to never give in to the disease, to live life as normally as possible. Don't skip classes because of the disease or its treatment, the doctor advised, and never feel sorry for yourself.
Steinberg took this advice to heart. The therapy, Dr. Hagemeister says, became "a part of his growing up. As an adolescent, he would come to treatments with his mother. Now he's a different person and he's making his own way. It's fun to see that."
Steinberg returns to M. D. Anderson every six months for a checkup. Although Steinberg considers himself cured, Dr. Hagemeister, an associate professor of medicine, says "it might be too early to say that."
Time is Steinberg's best friend. Dr. Hagemeister says that if Steinberg goes five years cancer-free, the chances of the disease ever reappearing are minimal. But, the physician says, "We're always worried what will happen to Hodgkin's disease patients 2 0 years down the line."
"I was never scared about dying," Steinberg injects. "It was the repercussions of the therapy that bothered me, like losing my hair, or the catheter in my chest."
But he is concerned his body may have been weakened by the therapies and may therefore be more susceptible to other health problems. He doesn't smoke or drink, and constantly frets about his peers who do. He brushes his teeth with a prescription paste that battles the radiation effects, and must take medicine for an inactive thyroid gland, also an effect of the radiation.
"Doctors do not understand the pain of the chemotherapy when they haven't been through this," Steinberg says. "I feel I'd be able to relate to a patient. I know how it feels. When a doctor tells me I might lose my hair, it has more of an impact if that d octor has had the same disease I have."
Even now, Steinberg can relate his experiences with two students also diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. He is able to tell them what to expect in the coming days, weeks and months. The two are now at the same stage of the disease as Steinberg. Now, it is a matter of checkups every six months and waiting. Those discussions about the disease, he says, are his way of easing their fear.
"It is so very important to understand what the patient is going through," he says. For Steinberg, " a day doesn't go by when I do not think about my cancer. I see that scar every day. People ask about the scar. I'm very open about it."
A decade from now, Steinberg sees himself as a doctor and married. "I could be at M. D. Anderson, studying under Dr. Hagemeister." The irony is not lost.
Harry Chaim Steinberg, his father, was born in Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, and fled the region as a child right before it capitulated to the terror of Adolf Hitler and his Third Reich. His mother, Lea, came from a war-torn village in Lithuania, and wa s among thousands of refugees swept into Germany after the war ended. The two later made their way to Israel, married and emigrated to the United States. At the end of a decade-long stay in America, in 1975, Amir was born in Brooklyn.
Steinberg lived with his family in Israel as a child. Amir is a popular name in the Middle East, meaning "prince" in Arabic, and "top of a tree" in Hebrew.
The couple later moved to Houston, where Amir's mother owns Ylang-Ylang, a custom jewelry enterprise with stores in the Galleria, the Wyndham Warwick Hotel and in Sugar Land. His father is an electrical engineer.
Amir's older brother Alon ("oak tree") is a cardiologist in Florida and his sister Orly ("Light to me") is pursuing her residency as an obstetrician in Washington, D.C.
But Steinberg believes his experiences with Hodgkin's disease might be considered fate. He tells the story of a young American student, drafted and sent by transport ship across the Atlantic Ocean to fight in World War I. The ship sank, Steinberg says, a nd the youth later became a world-famous neurosurgeon, responsible for saving hundreds of lives.
Maybe, Steinberg reflects, fate, in the form of Hodgkin's disease, intervened in his own life.
"I know there's not one cure-all for all cancers,'' he says. "Maybe I'll just help out. Maybe, in the future, I'll find a cure for Hodgkin's Disease as a way to save myself."
Maybe. Ad meyah ve esrim. Until 120.