It’s late on Day 548 since Trevor Madrid learned about the rare cancer attacking his gut and the 35-year-old is laughing long and loud.
It should not surprise that a Mesa fire fighter who runs into burning buildings for a living laughs in the face of the Big C.
His laughter keeps coming, as do his expressions of conviction.
“I don’t worry that I’m not going to beat this thing,” says the father of two. “I have no doubt in my mind that we’re going to get through this. It’s going to be rough, but there’s no way I’m not going to make it for my family.”
In this lost year we call 2020, Madrid radiates positivity the way some of us broadcast first-world problems.
He is the latest in a long line of Arizona firefighters fighting cancer caused by the job and the wicked carcinogens laced in smoke.
Yet even among cancer-afflicted first responders, Madrid is a rarity.