The prospect of passing out from exhaustion and pain hung constantly over Marcus Rios. Coming down with stuffy noses during his senior year of high school morphed into breathing almost exclusively through his mouth during football summer workouts. Then his first fall in Westwood stole days of sleep and unleashed the migraines that would amplify to explosive levels within Rios’ head, a place home to something that would dictate the terms of his life for the next year.
Discomfort besieged a cornerback deprived of sleeping more than an hour at a time. Restricted to just special teams and the associated sprints down the field, Rios, now a sophomore, felt better in the intermittent action of game-time situations than he did in the steadier exertion of pre-game warmups. Being able to focus throughout a full day of school and practice proved to be Rios’ toughest challenge. Constantly tired during classes and team meetings, Rios felt at his worst during practice. The cornerback remembered often being yelled at by coaches for leaning on his knees or bending backward to catch his breath in between plays or reps.
“If I was a coach, I’d think I was slacking, not on my stuff … that got a little hard on me, but I knew something was wrong,” Rios said. “I felt that I was going to pass out every single day … every single period.”
Defensive backs coach Demetrice Martin figured that Rios was simply going through the growing pains of freshman life. In Rios, Martin felt that he was coaching a player full of potential.
“Myself as a coach wanted to push him through those barriers, to let him know that he could do more, because he showed flashes … when he came in, he did a lot of great things, and showed speed, and courage, toughness … all that stuff you want in a defensive back,” Martin said.
On Oct. 25th, 2012, Rios gained the freedom to, among other things, vote and fight for his country. He spent his 18th birthday undergoing surgery to remove blockages in his nasal passage for what doctors thought to be a sinus infection. An escape from the surging sensations in his head was nowhere in sight, however, as the procedure did nothing to turn the tide in a war against his body being won by an unknown enemy.
Rios’ deteriorating condition escalated during a winter break spent home in Elk Grove, Calif. His mother, Ivy Rios, recalled Marcus walking around with a pounding head, unable to sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time. She also remembered the numb left side of the face that belonged to her son, who, despite receiving antibiotics during the break, would lose movement in his left eye in February.
Magnetic resonance imaging of Rios’ brain later in the month revealed the presence of a mass at the base of the cornerback’s skull that Dr. Jennifer Veltman, Rios’ physician, and other doctors thought to be an infection or bundle of cancerous cells.
For a two-week period marked by uncertainty as to the diagnosis of her son, Ivy Rios said she and her husband kept their composure and leaned on their faith.
“We just prayed. We called our family members, and everybody just told us … ‘it’s not going to be cancer,’ and we kept with that ’till the end,” Ivy Rios said. “I guess our faith in God kept us strong, that (Marcus) would be okay.”
Rios did his part to be strong for his parents, showing none of the alarm that Ivy Rios saw on doctors’ faces.
“I could tell they wanted to break down, but they didn’t see me stressing … crying or anything like that.”
Pathology and microbiology labs examined samples from Rios through microscopes and found the presence of a foreign invader, but the results for cancer were negative, an outcome that made Veltman very happy. What plagued Rios was common in existence, but confounding in mechanism within a healthy, young man. No real precedent existed for doctors in treating Rios.
A diagnosis
The source of Rios’ sleepless nights and agonizing practices was determined to be a fungus of the large genus Aspergillus. Veltman, a fellow in infectious disease, said that the reproductive spores of the soil-dwelling fungus are breathed in by, more or less, all people. Although Rios remembers having general sinus problems with colds and stuffy noses throughout his youth, Veltman calls the unchecked growth in his sinuses an unusual phenomenon:Nothing in Rios’ health records points to a compromised immune system or excess vulnerability to a fungal infection. None of the doctors who worked with Rios know exactly how he came to be infected. Veltman did not rule out, however, a type of infection called rhino-orbital aspergillosis, which oftenfeatures the brain and lungs as endpoints.
The doctor said that a vast majority of the knowledge accumulated on invasiveAspergillus infections comes from studies of populations with compromised immune systems, such as those found within the stem cell transplant community. Because most people with similar infections already have an abundance of other health issues, Veltman disputed the applicability of a statistic Rios said was given to him by other doctors, that eight of 12 people with the infection die. She claimed that there exist no established mortality rates for the condition as found in Rios.
Rios essentially remembers nothing about the surgeries or recovery, saying that he was too pumped full of medications to note the nature of his procedures. Among those drugs used to help Rios was voriconazole, the main antifungal used in his treatment. By administering the antifungal through Rios’ system intravenously with a peripherally inserted central catheter, doctors stunted the growth of the Aspergillus and may have prevented the penetration of the fungus into his eyes or brain.
Rios may not have been lucky enough to leave the procedures unscathed had he been in the same situation several years ago. Antifungals introduced over the course of the past decade or so, such as voriconazole, have reduced the need for “traumatic, life-changing surgeries,” including the removal of eyeballs, Veltman said.
A room with a view
Rios dropped roughly 50 pounds during his month-long stay in the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. His mother observed that a plate of fish, vegetables or chicken would often take an entire day to finish. Even when Marcus Rios got around to taking in the food, he would often regurgitate what he was served. Only vegetable juices seemed adequate for Rios’ appetite. As difficult as eating became, Rios pressed onward, determined to regain his playing weight and hit Spaulding Field, which was within eyeshot of his hospital window.
Nourishment for Rios’ spirits wound up being much easier to take in. Seeing his teammates battle through the early morning winter practices and occasional rains inspired Rios to heal up, so that he could train, win and even just be exhausted with his teammates.
“It was part of that healing process. … He would get up, and you could see the difference in him,” Ivy Rios said.
Only when Rios left the hospital did much of his family, friends and team hear about the life-threatening situation he fought through.
“(His family) never really knew how sick he was, because he would always be positive. They couldn’t believe how sick he was when they read about it,” Ivy Rios said. “He never wanted to let them know how bad it was. He said, ‘I’m going to walk out of here and be fine.'”
Marcus Rios kept his condition mostly to himself and his parents: He didn’t want to stress out his siblings, most of whom are collegiate track athletes. Keeping the matter away from his 9-year-old brother Sincere was particularly important for Rios. He envisioned his little brother going “crazy” if the cornerback was seen in dire straits.
“(He) said he wants to be here (at UCLA), just like me. He has motivated me to overcome this and get back on the field for him.”
Getting back to the field
Rios was more than eager to hit the playing field again, his enthusiasm indicative of a boy who did not oblige his sixth-grade teacher’s instruction to write down a goal other than becoming a football player. Rios knew his aim in just his first year on the field; his parents restricted him to flag football until he reached high school. Rios did more than enough to make up for lost ground, emerging from his hometown in Northern California as a four-star recruit at cornerback.
An ability to compensate for lost time did not prove quite as successful heading into Rios’ second year at UCLA, with determination and misfortune earning him more time spent in the hospital than on the field tackling other players. Rios zealously ran and worked out in the gym, pushing himself in the weight room before he was scheduled to strain himself physically.
A week-long summer return to the hospital came of his efforts, as a result of sustaining an infection in his sweaty, PICC-equipped arm. Recoveryentailed Rios wearing an automatic pump around his torso that infused him with antibiotics every six hours. The equipment was bothersome enough for Rios to drop classes in the summer, as he had in winter and spring. Rios was thankful that he had some academic leeway, given that he graduated from high school early and was enrolled in spring 2012.
Rios’ troubles seeped over into the fall. Two months ago, he spent about four days in the hospital when a nurse finally removed the PICC that had accompanied him throughout much of his surgery and recovery process. His arm started to itch, and a curious Rios pulled off the bandage to reveal a red, string-looking object protruding from his limb. Rios had the vein removed but the process did not require surgery. Doctors told Rios that they had not seen a case like that before, a message all too familiar to him.
“I always get them rare cases, I don’t know why,” said a laughing Rios.
Moving forward
Rios returned to practice on Sept. 3, but has yet to participate in drills without a red, no-contact jersey. He has dressed for some games this year, but the act has proved to be nothing but symbolic, with Martin feeling that Rios simply is not ready to play yet: Rios still needs to pass through more levels of clearance before seeing true action. A redshirt may be in the cards, given the lack of control Rios has had over his illness.
Jeff Ulbrich cannot wait for Rios’ return as a weapon on special teams. In 2012, the special teams coordinator and linebacker coach usually lined Rios up against other team’s best perimeter blockers on punt return and gunners on the punt team. The cornerback also played on the edge for the kickoff unit, where he was allowed to fly to the ball. He recorded three tackles in nine games last year.
“I’m begging for him to come back. He’s an unbelievable football player,” Ulbrich said. “He’s an instant impact guy on special teams … in impact spots that we trust with a lot of roles.”
With five scheduled games remaining, the cornerback often helps his fellow defensive backs by lining up as a scout team wide receiver. Rios looks content just being on the field, despite his limited role.
“It’s comforting to see him out there running around with us, happy, (with) a smile on his face,” Martin said. “It warms your heart.”
Veltman’s outlook for Rios includes the sophomore being able to live a “healthy, normal life” with an unobstructed gridiron career. Despite her positivity, the doctor verified that Rios’ treatments are far from over. Unlike antibiotics, which Veltman said can be taken for a period of time in the order of weeks, Rios’ medications operate on a longer time span and chip away gradually at his infection.
“He’s not cured yet. Just every time we do imaging, it gets smaller,” Veltman said. “That’s the goal, to see it shrinking. Hopefully, it’ll eventually be cured.”
Rios said he feels the effects of three other medications in addition to the pill-form voriconazole that he now takes. Drowsiness and a little pain in the back of his eyes, especially when his face meets the sun, are part of his everyday experience. Still, Rios currently feels the best he ever has since coming to UCLA.
A year after his first surgery for his supposed sinus problem, Rios finds the still-unknown route of infection inconsequential. He maintains no worries about his health, and joked that the cause of his condition has reached a “cold case” classification. For all the uncertainty surrounding his life over the last year, Rios remains certain in his capacity to overcome the unknown.
“I don’t fear nothing no more …” Rios said. “If I did happen to get the illness back, I’d beat it again.”