Cleveland Browns fans Ed Demyan (left) and Mary Kay Mackulin take in Super Bowl XLV in Dallas on Sunday
“It was just a couple of miles to the car,” Ed Demyan said with a shrug. “I had to stop a couple times to recharge my batteries, but it wasn’t too bad.”
He actually felt like he was floating on air, even with a hip that has fractures from the pancreative cancer that has invaded his bones and handed him a death sentence.
“Sometimes I get a little angry about all this, but not my sweet Ed,” said his fiance, Mary Kaye Mackulin. “He’s always upbeat. He’s that way every day. It’s truly amazing.”
And Demyan, a 47-year-old sales representative from Brooklyn, Ohio, was calling Sunday one of the happiest days of his life. He watched the Super Bowl in person for the first time thanks to Santa Barbara’s Dream Foundation.
“It was such a wonderful thing they did,” he said. “I can’t even express my gratitude in words the way they came through like that.”
The foundation had to scramble to complete his final wish. It didn’t secure two coveted tickets to Super Bowl XLV until his hometown team, the Cleveland Browns, located a pair just three weeks ago. The airline flights were arranged with donated miles from Continental Airlines, while the Dream Foundation covered the hotel costs and incidentals.
“While the Super Bowl is the specific theme of the dream, the underlying goal is consistent with all of the dreams we receive at the Dream Foundation: A joy-filled reprieve from disease,” said Thomas Rollerson, the foundation’s founder. “Ed and Mary Kaye deserve time away from his prognosis.”
Demyan had already felt indebted to Santa Barbara as a big fan of local Cleveland Browns starters Alex Mack, a center from San Marcos High, and Chris Gocong, a linebacker from Carpinteria.
“I saw the end of the Pro Bowl when Mack took that lateral and barreled his way into the end zone,” he said. “That was so good. We started talking about how maybe I should’ve asked about going to Hawaii to see that game, instead.
“But I’ve never, ever been to the Super Bowl and I’ve always wanted to go. And I didn’t know if I was going to make it.”
He was diagnosed with stage three pancreatic cancer last spring. He was scheduled for a pancreatectomy in November, but doctors called it off after detecting that it had entered stage four and spread to his bones.
“It is what it is,” Demyan said. “They told me that I had anywhere from six to nine months left, but I’m going to prove them wrong.”
He said he watched his first Super Bowl about 40 years ago with his dad, who still lives in Strongsville, Ohio. His love for football continued through Brooklyn High, where he won All-Ohio Division 2-A honors as an offensive tackle.
He’s been a lifelong Browns’ fan, but was rooting for the Packers on Sunday.
“Everyone in Cleveland roots against the Pittsburgh Steelers,” he said. “Besides, the Packers became my team when the Browns left Cleveland in 1995. Even after the Browns came back, I rooted for the Packers – except when they played us.”
He wore the Cleveland Browns’ replica jersey of Clay Matthews, Jr., the father of Packers’ linebacker Clay Matthews III.
Mackulin’s shirt, emblazoned in the Browns’ colors, said, “Temporary Green Bay fan, good for one time use only Feb. 6-11.”
“We just can’t support the Steelers,” she said. “It was a great game. The outcome was especially satisfying (a 31-25 Packers’ victory).”
They missed the half-time show and part of the third quarter when a reporter from Milwaukee noticed their Browns’ apparel and pulled them aside for an interview.
“They just couldn’t understand why we were Packers’ fans all of a sudden,” Mackulin said.
She has become an advocate for pancreatic cancer awareness and seized the opportunity to spread the word. She writes a blog (edandmk.blogspot.com) and also promotes the website pancan.org.
“People need to pay attention to their family history and not ignore the little pains,” she said. “Precious little money is going into the research to fight this disease, and that needs to change.
“By the time someone reaches stage two, they’re being told, ‘There’s nothing we can do for you.’ A lot of young people are dying from this disease, and we need to fight this a little harder.”
They held their ground at Cowboys’ Stadium on Sunday despite being hounded by the Steelers fans around them. Demyan took it with his typical pluck.
“As soon as the game ended, they just bolted from the stadium,” he said with a laugh. “They didn’t want to stick around to watch the ceremonies.”
Demyan, the father of three children, and Mackulin, who has a 15-year-old, postponed their wedding because of mounting medical expenses. A trip to Super Bowl XLV seemed out of the question until the Dream Foundation got hold of Demyan’s bucket list.
“They made this once-in-a-lifetime dream a reality,” Mackulin said. “I call it magic.”
And Demyan had caught it somehow.
“The line was so long that he didn’t want to wait for the bus,” she said. “We let him rest and stretch out his legs a couple of times, but he did good. He did real good.
“It had been a good, 12-hour day, too.”
The longer the better, he figured, when you’re making each one count.
Mark Patton’s column appears on Tuesday,
Contributed
Cleveland Browns fans Ed Demyan (left) and Mary Kay Mackulin take in Super Bowl XLV in Dallas on Sunday.
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