Alabama AD Bill Battle to take leave of absence, seek medical treatment
TUSCALOOSA | Over the course of a demanding 2015 football season, some of Bill Battle's colleagues noticed that the University of Alabama's 73-year old athletic director had grown noticeably thinner.
"A couple of people asked about it," Battle said. "I'd actually lost about 20 pounds. But I think most people just assumed I was getting into really good shape."
Battle was on a regimen of working out -- but the weight loss was due to something different.
The cause was treatment for multiple myeloma, a form of cancer. Battle's diagnosis is that he is in Stage 1, the earliest level of development. He is, he said, "in a good partial remission" and that his illness is "not life threatening." In an effort to sustain that remission, Battle will spend the next two weeks, beginning on Wednesday, at the Winship Cancer Center at Emory University in Atlanta. While there, Battle will undergo stem cell replacement therapy under the care of Dr. Sagar Lonial.
While in therapy, Battle will take a leave of absence from the Alabama athletic department.
"That doesn't mean I will stop working," Battle said. "I will be in touch by e-mail every day. I will be in direct contact with our senior administrators on a daily basis, and I expect to be back in the office later this summer. My doctors say that I will be able to keep working for years, for as long as I want to."
In the spring of 2014, as part of a physical examination and stress test that is standard procedure for UA executives, x-rays revealed a small growth on one of Battle's vertebrae. Further tests revealed that the growth was a plasmacytoma, a growth or small tumor caused by excess plasma cells in the blood. The growth was found to be non-malignant but the possibility existed that the condition could develop into a cancer, specifically a multiple myeloma.
"We wanted to monitor it as closely as possible," said Mary Battle, Battle's wife and, also, an oncology nurse. "We went to the oncology department at UAB and Bill had five weeks of radiation therapy. He went into remission and everything was fine for the rest of 2014."
Battle's condition was monitored closely, however, and an exam in the spring of 2015 "came back with a couple of spots," he said. After consultation at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Battle then returned home to Tuscaloosa, where he has been treated by Dr. David Hinton of the Faye Manderson Cancer Center at DCH Regional Medical Center. He has had three rounds of therapy in the past year and is "feeling great," he says, going into the stem cell replacement at Emory.
"He is barely Stage 1 right now," Mary Battle said. "His overall good health has been an important part of this, just as it is in any health care situation. With all the advances in recent years, cancer is becoming more and more of a chronic disease instead of a crisis."
Battle said he expected to be at Emory for "about two weeks, mainly because the treatment eliminates your white blood cells and they want to control your environment." Once the white count stabilizes, Battle said, he plans on "some recuperation" at his Georgia farm.
"I don't anticipate that will be too long, maybe two or two and a half weeks, but we will follow what the doctor says.
"I feel great. My prognosis is good. The doctors all believe this will be successful."
The chemotherapy prior to the stem cell replacement will have one obvious effect -- the loss of Battle's trademark silver hair.
"It's going to fall out, but there is just one chemotherapy treatment, so they tell me that it will grow back," Battle said with a laugh. "They just don't know how it will grow back. It might be the same, or it might even be curly."
Reach Cecil Hurt at cecil@tidesports.com or 205-722-0225.