‘That was the first time I had to learn to walk again, and it took me three years. The next would be after a stroke – the start of my fight against cancer.’

Sean Wachter, Baldwin

“I’ve always been an athlete. I played football and lacrosse and later turned to wrestling. I was a 300-pound offensive lineman in college. Later, I became the Baldwin district strength and conditioning coach and taught my students how to use the weight room properly. I loved teaching students and coaching football, but unfortunately, they had to cut my position. I come from a family of law enforcement, so I set out to become a police officer. In 2012, while still working towards becoming a police officer, I got into a really bad accident that changed the course of my life. I broke my neck and back, and I couldn’t walk. That was the first time I had to learn to walk again, and it took me three years. The next would be after a stroke – the start of my fight against cancer.

“Going into the spring of 2016, I was dealing with a whole bunch of health ailments that weren’t adding up. I went to all of my doctors and hospitals, but they kept brushing me off. My aunt Robin passed away from cancer during this time, and I gave the eulogy. I spoke about how she just kept living her life, even ignoring doctors’ orders and traveling. She kept living. I ended the speech by saying how if I ever got cancer, my aunt Robin was an example of how to live life with it. One month later, I was diagnosed with cancer.

“At the time, I was 31 years old and living by myself. I was so unwell, still unsure what the health ailments were at the time, and doctors kept dismissing me. I told my dad that something wasn’t right. I was scared. I was having these bad headaches and vomiting. The room was spinning, and my legs were wobbly. I told him it wasn’t related to my previous neck injury, and he believed me; I was never one to complain about being in pain. My parents lived close by, so I stayed with them for a bit. Unfortunately, they had to clean out my aunt Robin’s home, so I stayed back. Not even 10 minutes after they left, I wound up having a massive stroke. My Bell’s palsy from my neck injury flared up. I was puking, and my legs gave out. Luckily, I was able to mash enough buttons together on my phone to reach my dad. He could hear me slurring my speech. He raced back to get me, dragging me into the car to the hospital.”

If I was going down, I’d be going down swinging.

“When I got to the hospital, I was vomiting, and my face was drooping, and yet they put me in the non-emergency area. I demanded a CT scan. Within seconds, the machine showed a stroke and a golf ball-size tumor on my cerebellum.

“I had to get a couple of blood transfusions and prepped for surgery. After the surgery, my father told me I have cancer, and I replied, ‘Sir, let’s take care of this.’ My mom said she’s never been more proud of me. I was there for another three weeks before transferring to Sloan Kettering. I began making peace with the idea that this might be my time. I thought I had lived a full life, but then I realized that my mother would lose her son. My grandmother would lose her grandson. My team would lose their teammate. I realized that I had so many people around me. My former football teammates made a spreadsheet to keep track of who would hang out and watch games with me on different days. I had all of these people around me, and I wanted to live for them.

“I kept trudging along, but unfortunately, I started having really nasty seizures, and one massive seizure caused my brain activity to cease for a short moment. They did some spinal taps and found that I had a rare complication. The cancer spread to my cerebral spinal cord fluid. My liver was failing, and I had stage 4 melanoma with leptomeningeal disease. I was given 12 weeks to live. It was a little knee-weakening when I got that phone call at night, and they told me to get my affairs in order. Now more than ever, I didn’t want to go out without a fight. If I was going down, I’d be going down swinging.

“One of my doctors went through the 28 rare genetic mutations I had and used them to develop my treatment plan of targeted chemotherapy. Her research was funded by the Jimmy V Foundation. I had tried numerous chemotherapies, but each one caused some sort of organ failure. We finally arrived at two oral chemos, Tafinlar and Mekinist, along with Opdivo immunotherapy. Amazingly, these worked and started to turn the scans around. They stopped the disease from progressing. Those 12 weeks passed, and I had extra time now. Within a year, a lot of brain metastases that I had started to slowly go away.”

That was the last time I ever had to spend a night at Sloan Kettering.

“As things started to stabilize, I became more thankful for the time I had, and I took my friends on trips. I had a very morbid sense of humor during that time and called the trips my ‘death tour.’ I used humor as a coping mechanism. If you can’t laugh, then why bother? It helped me get through that time. I volunteered and coached football again. It was such a rewarding experience to be back. It kept my brain sharp. At the end of the 2017 season, I went on a cross-country trip and beat myself up a bit too much. It put me back in the hospital for a week. That was the last time I ever had to spend a night at Sloan Kettering.

“I decided to put myself out there, but it was difficult. My body wasn’t the same – my weight fluctuated so much due to cancer. I had 20-plus years of being a meathead, and then all of a sudden, I wasn’t a big, muscular guy anymore. I didn’t look the same.

“I met my now-wife on a dating app at the end of 2017. I swiped right and she swiped left. I went on Facebook and thought, what do I have to lose? I messaged her, and we went on our first date – it was six hours long. Funny enough, we were actually both born in Baldwin 13 days apart and lived on the same block. We were connected without even knowing. After a few months of dating, she asked if I wanted to raise her daughter with her. I was always the guy that said I never wanted to buy a house or get married or have kids. She changed my mind. Raising my stepdaughter is the thing I am most proud of. I can credit my cancer recovery to my brain, to doctors, to medicine, but my wife and stepdaughter actually gave me something to live for. I wanted to push myself even harder. She was trusting me with such a great responsibility, and I wanted to be the best I could be for both of them. My wife and I welcomed a miracle baby in September. Cancer was a beautiful thing that happened to me because it really changed my life for the better. It made me appreciate things I was taking for granted.

“During COVID, they had to suspend my treatment. It was three months of just the chemo pills and no infusions. When we began treatment again, they took scans and were shocked that they looked even better. My lumbar puncture came back exceptionally clean.”

There was no one else reported in the world to have beat the rare cancer that I did. I was the first one.

“In February of 2021, I rang the bell and was officially done with my infusion therapy. I was still on oral chemo pills, but done with going in every other week for infusions. These infusions saved my life. Such a small number of people actually respond to them, and I was a top responder to the drug. In March of 2022, I stopped taking the oral chemo pills. The lumbar puncture came back crystal clean again. The DNA test came back as if it were an erroneous result – not because the sample was poor, but because the traces of cancer cells were all dead tissue and so minuscule. The computer was barely able to pick them up. There was no one else reported in the world to have beat the rare cancer that I did. I was the first one.

“I’ve since started a YouTube fitness page because working out is so important to me, especially after having nine surgeries and cancer. Just because your body’s been destroyed doesn’t mean you can’t rebuild yourself again. I credit so much of my recovery to exercise. Wrestling has been a way for me to connect with my stepdaughter on a different level. Wrestling became our thing. I took her to a match and bought premium tickets to get us backstage. I rented a limo for us, and on the way there was when I received the news that I was certified cancer-free. I am the only documented case of surviving this cancer in the world. That’s when I shared with her that I was sick for a while. She’s 8 years old now, and so I didn’t want her to worry during that time.

“My friends and family all wanted to celebrate after I got that call, but I carry survivor’s guilt with me. I’ve seen so many people suffer and pass. It didn’t feel right in my mind to celebrate. We came up with the idea of a fundraiser for Sloan Kettering. I chatted with my buddies, and they said I should get back in the wrestling ring as entertainment for it. I wrestled back in high school, but I hadn’t been in a wrestling ring in about 12 years. My buddies pushed me to do it, and we raised some good money.

“I thought that was going to be it for wrestling. I thought it was a one and done, but then a year later, my stepdaughter said she was upset she wasn’t at the fundraiser to watch me wrestle.”

I wouldn’t be wrestling right now if it weren’t for everything I went through.

“A friend of mine passed away, and so we put together the Captain Michael Fischer Memorial Wrestling Fundraiser in his honor. The proceeds went to St. Jude’s, which was his family’s choosing. The fundraiser is what he would’ve wanted. I poured my heart and soul into it. We had over 700 people in attendance. I trained with a childhood friend of mine for months beforehand, and they put us in a tag team title match against two local wrestlers. We won.

“The V Foundation, which was pivotal in my recovery, put me in contact with WWE tag team champion Mike Mondo, and we trained together for three months for a trios championship. We made it to the finals. After that, I was approached by different cancer organizations to be a spokesperson and advocate through wrestling. My goal is to continue showing people that they can get up. I got knocked on my ass, and I am technically disabled, but I don’t want to live a life where I’m just sitting around.

“Wrestling is art. It’s my version of expression. I go out there to show other people with cancer that they can keep living life and chasing their dreams. Don’t let it stop you.

“I do this for the cancer community, and I do this to show my girls they can achieve their dreams and advocate for others. The championship belts hanging on the wall and my tattoos are reminders. I’m covered in tattoos related to cancer, and they’re for the people who were there for me. I have a melanoma ribbon tattooed on my arm along with a Sloan logo, and it represents the beautiful folks that work at Sloan and the brothers and sisters I have that were not as fortunate as I’ve been.

“I want to inspire people and to try and be a beacon of hope. If people are getting something out of what I’m doing, then I would go through cancer all over again, because then it was all worth it. I wasn’t a choirboy, nor was I the devil, but if I was to not live a life of service on the second go around that I’ve been given, I’d be ashamed. I’m living my dream to show others that they can live theirs too. I wouldn’t be wrestling right now if it weren’t for everything I went through.”

Interviewed by Melanie Gulbas