DECATUR - When coach Lori Kerans called aside Millikin University women's basketball players Whitney Schwartz and Ricki Dorsett on Nov. 14, what she told them took their breath away.

When Kerans brought them together again three days later, what she told them made them weep.

Lori Kerans - 45-year-old national championship coach, tireless volunteer and community icon - has breast cancer again. She will have her second mastectomy this morning at Decatur Memorial Hospital, 11 years and one month after her first bout with breast cancer.

If all goes well - and in her positive-thinking mind everything always does - she will be out of the hospital while most of us are eating Thanksgiving dinner. Just to be safe, she and her family have postponed their own Thanksgiving meal until noon on Sunday. Later that night, the Millikin women's basketball team has a practice scheduled at Griswold Center.

Do Schwartz and Dorsett, two of the team's six seniors, expect to see their coach on the gym floor Sunday evening?

"She expects to see herself there," Schwartz said confidently. "And it will be incredible to see her."

The reoccurrence of cancer understandably caught Kerans off guard, and news of her setback will be a blow to those in the community who have admired her unwavering resilience in the wake of her first battle with the disease.

But she is predictably full of optimism and, apparently, with good reason.

"I think my team is still scared," Kerans said this week. "I think they don't wholly believe me when I say I feel a lot better about this cancer than the previous one. They are not the same cancers.

"The first cancer was very dangerous. It was very invasive, very aggressive and had already reached the lymph nodes and had invaded the chest wall. It was scary, and there's no doubt I dodged a bullet.

"But this cancer is isolated in the duct system. It has not spread to the lymph nodes or the chest wall and in my mind, and in the minds of my surgeon and oncologist, it is not nearly as dangerous.

"You never know once they get in there what they are doing to find, but based on the radiology and the surgical biopsy, we are not anticipating any followup treatment other than checking on the mastectomy. I do not believe they will have to do chemotherapy or radiation, and that's wonderful."

Eleven years of dealing with cancer and diligent aftercare teaches one to learn about the disease and speak the appropriate language, which is why Kerans seems so at home discussing her predicament. Since her original diagnosis and surgery in October 1997 when she was 34, she has become an outspoken advocate for regular mammograms and cancer awareness, a way of life that appears to have helped detect this cancer at an early stage.

Her routine now includes mammograms every six months and it was her most recent check on Nov. 11 that turned up something demanding a closer inspection.

"They called me on the 12th and said I'd have to come back in for some magnification," Kerans said. "Nothing real scary. So I went back the next day and they came in while I was changing back into my clothes."

Kerans was told to meet with Dr. Jon Locke, who while inspecting the radiology results could see eight small spots near the edge of her breast.

Another meeting followed with Dr. Tim Bailey, who had been Kerans' surgeon 11 years ago, and they agreed to do the biopsy the next day.

"They felt there was about a 20 percent chance it would be cancer," Kerans said. "So you know what I heard? That's an 80 percent chance it's not."

The biopsy was performed on Friday, Nov. 14, and that afternoon was the first time she called her six seniors together to give them an update. At the time, Kerans did not know she had cancer.

"She just said, `Let's just see what happens,' " said Schwartz, the senior from Rochester. "She wanted us to know what was going on."

The results of the biopsy did not arrive until Monday, Nov. 17. Kerans took the disappointing news with barely a hiccup and was determined to address it immediately.

"After I found out, I called my mom and dad, my boss (Athletics Director Joe Hakes) and Dick Marshall (Kerans' assistant coach). They went ahead and started practice without me, and when I showed up at about 4:30, I called the seniors together again and told them.

"That was probably the hardest thing I've done in terms of communicating with people," she said. "More so than my mom and dad, because these players haven't been through it.

"Any time you hear the word cancer, it still sounds like a death sentence, particularly for an 18 or 20-year-old. So there were stunned looks and tears and puppy-dog eyes and hugs, all that stuff. It took about 20 minutes, a kind of emotional time with the kids and me.

"Then we finished practice and I called the entire team together and told the rest of them. I just told the seniors, `OK, I expect that you will take over now.' "

For Schwartz and Dorsett, the uncertainty of their coach's situation is frightening and a reminder that Kerans has prepared them for this moment.

"From our freshman year to our senior year, she has taught us so many different lessons that have absolutely nothing to do with playing on the court," Schwartz said. "And to see her living one of those lessons she has taught us - appreciating life, appreciating the small things. It's amazing."

"I feel like I have learned more from her about life in general than about basketball," said Dorsett, the senior from Newman. "I feel she cares so much about us. We're not just players, we're her friends. She'd do anything for us. It's way more than I expected when I came here."

As for Kerans, she will not be deterred from the optimistic outlook that helped her navigate her first bout with cancer.

She has looked at the basketball schedule, and since Millikin's next game is not until Dec. 6, she is confident she won't miss a beat. She thinks about next spring's garden and can barely wait to stick her hands in the dirt.

She is looking forward to Sunday's Thanksgiving meal and will gaze lovingly at her 5-year-old neice, Hannah, and 4-year-old nephew, Zachary, and smile at their round, beaming faces.

"Of all of the many blessings, I will be thankful for this Thanksgiving, they continue to be No. 1 and No. 2," she said. "I really have such a faith. I have so much to be thankful for."

mtupper@herald-review.com|421-7983