November 5, 2001

Cuero quarterback carries faith by his side in game of life
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___CUERO--Life can take a turn in a moment, in the time it takes to turn from your back onto your chest.
___That's how quickly Andrew Heard found his life had taken a turn. He had developed a cramp in his calf at a track meet, and when trainers flipped him onto his chest to better work out the cramp, he found a far greater problem--he couldn't breathe.
___"I thought I was going to suffocate before I got them to turn me back over," he recalled.
___The high

ANDREW HEARD and his mother, Mary

school athlete already had been experiencing a chronic cough and some weight loss, so a doctor's appointment was made.
___"I really had already known something was wrong," he confessed. "My body just wasn't right."
___The diagnosis was lymphoma. A tumor the size of a cantaloupe was found in his lung right next to his heart.
___The quarterback for the Cuero Gobblers had begun his senior year with dreams of a Class 3A football championship. But once his illness was detected in April, he finished the school year hoping to be victorious in a far greater struggle.
___Initially, however, he wasn't extremely concerned.
___"I wasn't worried about it all," Heard recalled. "I thought God would take care of it and it would go away. I'd had a lot of prayers answered just the way I wanted them to be answered, and I was sure this was going to be another one."
___That attitude began to change, however, as first surgery and then chemotherapy were required.
___"When you're 18 and younger you never think of dying," he reflected. "The surgery was painful--they had to cut my chest open pretty big--but I had dealt with a lot of pain playing football, so that I could handle."
___Much harder to handle was the chemotherapy and not knowing how things would turn out.
___"The chemo is so drug out that I got depressed and for a long time I didn't talk to God. That didn't make things any better," he confessed.
___A regular at First Baptist Church of Cuero since he was 4 years old, Heard had taken over as Cuero High School's quarterback midway through his sophomore year and led the team all the way to the state championship game, where they had lost to Aledo. The next year, he injured his passing hand and was reduced to just another running back, since he could not throw the ball by the end of the season. But the Gobblers still made it to the second round of the playoffs.
___The stage seemed to be set for a senior-year championship until Heard broke his leg in the fifth game of the year.
___The disappointment of an abbreviated football season did not compare, however, to a potentially fatal illness. Still, Heard did not give up--not on himself and not on God.
___While he admits he did go through a spiritual depression, God brought him out of it, he said.
___"I'm called on to lead my church in prayer a lot, and I always want God to speak through me, I want them to hear what God has to say, not my words," he explained. "Well, I was supposed to lead in the prayer that day, and I remember praying before I left home, 'God, I want them to hear your words, but you and I haven't talked much in the last few weeks, so I think we ought to take care of that first.' After that I was OK."
___God also sent many people to encourage him as well, Heard said. Being the quarterback of a small-town football team made him a local celebrity of sorts.
___"When I first got sick, I got a ton of letters," he said. "On the first day I went to M.D. Anderson, I got a packet of letters from the kids at the Catholic school in Yoakum. That was an awful day, and I really needed those letters that day."
___A family in Goliad still sends him a letter every week. Football teams throughout South Texas sent him notes. Some of his friends wrote to sports legends like Joe Montana and David Robinson, who dropped him a line as well.
___Heard said those people can't know how much their caring meant to him.
___But other friends seemed to have been scared away by his illness.
___"Some people ask how I'm doing, and some stay away because they don't want to hear if I'm doing bad," he acknowledged. "I know they still care, though, because I know they ask other friends about how I'm doing. They just don't know how to deal with it."
___One of the ways Heard has coped with his illness is to use it as an avenue to share his faith. He has spoken to youth groups and helped coach a junior high football team.
___One of the most important things he feels he has done, however, was to be interviewed for a story that ran in the Victoria Advocate.
___"That was great because I got to share my faith in a very clear way with a lot of people that I will never get to meet," he said. "At that time, I was really afraid I was going to die, and it meant a lot to me that I was able to do something that meant a lot to a lot people, who called or wrote to me that I had encouraged them."
___He is thrilled to share his faith, because it has been the thing that has seen him through, he said.
___"It has helped me not get so depressed," Heard said. "When my plans were all changed, I knew God would take care of me, and that helped a lot.
___"I think if you had cancer and didn't have God, it would be really hard. I don't know how people without God do it."
___Despite the pain, the battle with cancer has been a spiritually growing experience for him, he said. "My perception of God has changed a great deal. God hasn't changed at all, but the way I see him has changed."
___His mother, Mary, said the experience has been a spiritual journey for her as well.
___"You learn to live absolutely day by day," she said. "Before, we were always worried by things in the future. God's word tells us not to worry about tomorrow, just take care of today. That now has a whole new meaning for us."
___"Also, we talk a lot as Christians about what God has done for us, but also as a Christian you have to be willing to give up anything. We say we're willing to do that, but it's a lot different when it appears it might be your lifestyle or a child. When that's a possibility, you realize what kind of commitment you made when you followed Christ."
___She has found her son's faith to be a testimony as well.
___"If God is your priority, things will fall into place. Andrew's always been an exceptional child, and he will have an exceptional future," she said.
___She also is grateful to the many who have prayed for and encouraged her son.
___"It's all been a real testimony to the power of prayer. I believe very strongly that is why things have gone as well as they have," she said.
___In recent weeks, Heard has gotten word that his tumor has continued to shrink and that after another series of radiation treatments he may be able to transfer to a four-year university at mid-term after spending this semester at Victoria College while undergoing chemotherapy. He plans to be a coach.
___His mother can't wait.
___"In a way, it will be hard to have him away from me after he's been so sick, but I think more than anything I'll just be very proud," she said. "It's kind of like at graduation this spring. All the other moms were sobbing, and they looked at me and said, 'Aren't you sad?" I told them I was just thrilled he got to walk across the stage."
___

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