"I want to show kids how to support each other!"

After being diagnosed with brain and lung cancer, Mike Truskoski refused to give up coaching coed little league hockey. And just eight days after surgery, he was back on the ice, inspiring his whole community

-  —Kellie B. Gormly

"We can all be an example of how to persevere in hard times," says Mike, here with his wife and daughters

What happened?” Mike Truskoski asked when he woke up in the hospital with a split lip and blood on his face.

“You had a seizure,” the doctor told him. “And you have a mass on the right side of your brain. We'll need to do surgery.”

It had been a typical day at his Chicago office on his 41st birthday, until the seizure struck.

The paramedics rushed Mike to the hospital, where doctors discovered the mass. Then, just two days after surgery, Mike got more devastating news: The mass was a secondary tumor that had spread from his chest, and he had stage 4 lung cancer.

I won't let this steal my life, Mike resolved as he thought of his wife and two daughters, Charlie, 8, and Willa, 4. I'm going to fight this!