TOLEDO, Ohio — Waite High School history teacher, Joe Boyle, is many things.
An enthusiastic history buff and an avid Cleveland sports fan. And like the superheroes he also loves so much, he doesn't shy away from a battle.
"I was diagnosed with cancer almost 13 years ago," Boyle said. "I have kidney cancer that's metastasized from top to bottom. Brain, lip, lungs, thumb, hips, leg and I think that's it."
It's a fight that hasn't been easy, but you'd never know it.
"It is very inspiring for me to see someone who has been through so much to keep working hard every day and being here for our students," Waite's school nurse, Shiloh Cahill said.
Most days, you can find Boyle in his classroom.
"I've been able to build a wall between sick Joe and teacher Joe," he said.
But that wall came down while he was grading papers and planning lessons.
He started coughing up blood.
"Teacher Joe was very sick Joe at work and that was kind of a frightening moment for me," Boyle said.
He made it to the school nurse's office but said he didn't remember much once he got there.
"It was a large scary amount of blood that he was coughing up," Cahill said. "I knew that he was on a blood thinner because he had prepared me for that. I knew that we needed to get help immediately, there was no time to waste."
Time as an ICU nurse prepared Cahill to keep his airways clear until the ambulance got there.
"Fire and EMS got here. They transported me and I can tell you exactly where I was when I was sure I was going to die," said Boyle. "That was on the middle of the King Bridge," Boyle said.
He said his next clear memory was waking up in Cleveland. Doctors told him an artery had given way and that one of his lungs had partially collapsed because of it.
He said Cahill and the other staff in the health center were the real superheroes that day.
"Big emergencies happen when you have this many people in a building together," said Cahill. "To have someone here who knows what to do in an emergency can make all the difference. Minutes count in an emergency."
Those minutes, the quick actions of others and the knowledge of Joe's cancer are what saved his life.
"Going to work every day is pretty easy when you know that everybody is there to take care of each other," Boyle said.
He said this experience has shown him how important the staff at the Health Center are because there are schools in our area that do not have full-time nurses in their buildings.
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