Kirby Dunn faces running, cancer battle the same way: head on

Kirby Dunn used to think some of the workouts he endured preparing to become an eight-time NAIA All-American in track and field at Wayland Baptist University were tough. Little did he know at the time that those workouts, as rigorous as they were, would pale in comparison to what his body has gone through over the past 10 years battling testicular cancer.
 
A native of Bowie, Texas, Dunn was a standout middle-distance runner at Wayland from 2006-10. A two-time All-Sooner Athletic Conference honoree in cross country, he earned most of his laurels in track as he helped restore the Pioneers to an NAIA power, concluding with his own national title in the 1,000 meters and the program's only outdoor men's national team championship.
 
After placing no higher than 17^th at nationals either indoors or outdoors his first three years, the Pioneers broke through in 2010 under head coach Brian Whitlock. Wayland scored 56 points and took second place at the indoor meet before posting 70 points and winning it all outdoors. That started a streak of 14 consecutive podium (top four) finishes over the next seven years.
 
"The 2010 teams were my most memorable," Dunn recalled. "We came close to winning the indoor national championship but were a few mistakes shy of coming home with the banner. That team came together during the outdoor season to bring home the first outdoor NAIA national championship in WBU history. Wayland obviously has a great history in track & field, but for whatever reason the outdoor title always seemed to elude even the greatest of teams through the years, so it was especially meaningful to bring home that banner."
 
Dunn did his part in 2010 by being part of two top relay teams – the distance medley which finished fourth (10:03.29) and the 4x800 which placed second (7:30.40). Dunn also was second in the open 800 (1:49.45) and came up with his own national title in his best race, the indoor 1,000 meters, with a time of 2:25.19, a school record that still stands. "I believe I ended up breaking or improving the record seven times while I was at Wayland," said Dunn, who also set school marks in the indoor 800 and indoor and outdoor DMRs.
 
While the national meets were the pinnacle of Dunn's track experiences at Wayland, he'll always remember competing at the prestigious Texas Relays in Austin. "I have a lot of great memories, but I think besides the great national meets I was a part of my favorite memories came from the illustrious Texas Relays. You don't normally experience anywhere close to the thousands of fans at a track meet like you do at the Texas Relays. Most years will see 20,000-plus spectators in the stands, which makes it one of the largest in the U.S."
 
One of Dunn's best Texas Relays moments came during the 2010 season. "Coach Whitlock entered our distance medley relay into the university division instead of the college division. That meant we were the only non-NCAA Division I school in the race. They don't normally allow non-D-1 schools to compete in that division, but somehow Coach Whitlock made it happen. I think there were 15 or 16 teams in the race and we ended up almost winning the whole thing, only getting beat by the University of Texas. We beat some pretty large schools like UCLA, Texas Tech, TCU, Baylor, LSU, Arkansas, and Kansas."
 
A six-time NAIA Academic All-American (twice each in cross country and indoor & outdoor track), Dunn graduated with WBU's highest academic rank in 2010 when he also earned the Roscoe Snyder Award as Wayland's most outstanding senior athlete. He began working for Harvest Christian Fellowship in Plainview as an administrative assistant while also serving as a graduate assistant coach at Wayland. Dunn enjoyed that role, getting to train with the cross country team that finished a still program-best national runner-up. He also worked under new head track coach Rohan Thompson for a team that finished second indoors and fourth outdoors.
 
In 2011 Dunn started working full-time at Harvest Christian. It was about then that Dunn married Catherine Leubner, who also ran track and cross country at Wayland and was his sister Kendra's roommate. "It capped off the most exciting and amazing adventure at Wayland – running for four years and coaching for one," Dunn said.
 
Four months after he married, Dunn was diagnosed with stage 3-b testicular cancer, although he later found out he actually had three different types of testicular cancer at the same time. "If I hadn't had caught it when I did, it was spreading at such an alarming rate that I may have only lived another few weeks," Dunn said. "If treatment had not started when it did then it would have spread to my brain in a matter of days, and soon after that it wouldn't have been treatable."
 
Dunn had five cycles of chemotherapy from November 2011 through May 2012. The next month he had an 11-hour abdominal surgery to remove remaining cancer masses, and eight weeks after that another surgery to remove a mass on his lung wall. "After all of that I was finally in remission with no signs of disease. After 6-8 months of recovery I felt virtually as good as I did in the summer of 2011. In fact, by the fall of 2013 I was back to being able to run 10 miles at a 6:30 or under mile pace."
 
For the next four years, Dunn said, "Everything was great." Then last September he noticed a pain in his hip flexor that got increasingly worse. A visit to a physical therapist resulted in the discovery of a lump in Dunn's stomach. "This turned out to be a tumor that had grown into the psoas muscle which was essentially simulating a hip flexor injury." Dunn explained. "The cancer I thought I had defeated had come back."
 
Soon after, Dunn went back for more chemotherapy. He received two cycles that were similar to the previous regimen followed by two high-dose treatments that would have killed him if not for transplant of his own healthy stem cells. Finally, on Jan. 20, 2017, Dunn was officially done with chemo…again.
 
"Unfortunately, the stem cell transplants weren't quite enough and they told me I was going to have to get the (abdominal) surgery again, which is very rare," Dunn said. This time the surgery at Houston's MD Anderson Hospital only lasted seven hours. "As the surgeon was talking to my family about how pleased he was with the surgery, the nurses told him that a blood clot had formed in my pelvic area at the top of my leg."
 
As the clot was being removed, an issue with Dunn's vascular system resulted in a double fasciotomy of the lower leg. Over the next three weeks he had three more surgeries to gradually close up his leg. "This is why I haven't yet been able to run again," he said.
 
Dunn documented his first battle with cancer in an online blog, which can be accessed at http://heartofvictory.blogspot.com or by watching a mini-documentary made to help promote the 2013 and 2014 Wayland Wellness runs. "Ron Appling (Wayland's director of human resources and wellness manager) graciously decided to donate the proceeds of the 5k in 2013 and the 10k in 2014 to my family to help recover medical costs." That video is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGw7rRVfzUM.
 
Dunn's last battle proved much tougher. "I had a lot more side effects and never felt like blogging like I did the first time around," he said.
 
After multiple rounds of chemotherapy, two stem-cell transplants and six surgeries, Dunn – who currently serves as Harvest Christian's creative pastor – is hopeful for his future.
 
"Through this entire journey I've trusted God and have always known that I will get past this storm called cancer. It hasn't looked like I thought it would, but I've experienced so much peace despite everything ("A peace that surpasses understanding," Philippians 4:7). And I've never feared death, because I know God has more planned for me. I've got a lot of life left to live and I'm going to live it to the fullest. I'm confident that I'm going to live to be an old man with lots of grandkids. That confidence only comes from my faith. I like the definition of faith according to Hebrews 11:1 in the Amplified Bible: "Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality – faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses]."