And what a story it is.
âIt really is a miracle,â Rosie Miller admitted.
Today that would make it a Christmas miracle, though, as her 65-year-old husband Dave put it:
âNow every day is Christmas to me.â
He admitted it wasnât long ago that he didnât expect to live to see this Christmas Day. And he may not have were it not for, as Rosie put it, âthe best gift everâ by his twin sister, Debbie.
Dave is one of the best known and most popular figures in Moraine. He worked for the city in various capacities â mostly as the Director of Parks and Recreation â for nearly 47 years and has been an integral part of the Rotary Club and its many community involvements for over four decades.
Heâs also known for his own athletic and outdoor pursuits, many of them with Rosie and, in the case of distance running, often following her.
After playing high school football at Fairmont West and then college soccer at Morehead State, Dave returned to Moraine and while working with the rec department also made a name for himself as one of the best racquetball players in the state while serving as the pro at a couple of area racquetball centers.
While working at a Moraine club, he met Rosie Barlow, an Alter High School grad who was an assistant manager there. They eventually teamed up as mixed doubles partners and won a lot of tournaments.
With a laugh, she recounted how Dave was shy and took a long time to ask her out. When he finally did, their romance bloomed, they wed and over the years their mutual love of sports and staying active led them to biking, hiking, scuba diving and kayaking all around the country.
Along with myriad half marathons, 10K and 5K races, they ran the New York City Marathon with another local couple in 1986 â the two women also ran it sans husbands the year before â and then Dave did the Los Angeles Marathon solo in 1991 when Rosie dropped out to give birth to their son Matt, the second of their four children.
By now you get the idea. Dave Miller has always been a fitness buff and that too, he said, helped make this Christmas miracle happen.
âOver the years the rest of us would get coughs and sinus problems and bronchitis, but heâd never even get a cold,â Rosie said. âHe never had anythingâŚuntil six years ago.â
Dave initially retired from his city of Moraine job in early 2014 and, soon after, following a 5K race, he noticed a lump in his neck. He got it checked and was told he had Stage IV lymphoma. After surgery and a series of chemo sessions, he said his cancer was in remission within six months. Eventually he was coaxed back to work, but he also set out to accomplish the things on his ongoing Bucket List. That included visiting every state in the union â often through outdoor adventures like biking and hiking â and every national park. Itâs a venture he and Rosie first launched years earlier with their kids in tow.
âAfter that initial diagnosis, I was good for almost four years and looking back, I really had accomplished everything on that list,â he said. âAnd then we were on a scuba diving trip off Key Largo (Florida) in 2018. That trip Iâd made my 100th dive, then 101 and 102, as well.
âWhen we got back in we were going to toast my dives with a beer with everybody, but as I sat there at the table I just got sicker and sicker. I had a high fever, so I went back to the hotel room. It was our last day in Florida and when we got home I immediately went to see my oncologist.
âHe told me, âDave, this time itâs much worse. Itâs Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).â
âThey told me then I had a 15 percent chance of making it two years, but once again the Lord blessed me. I went into the hospital the day before Thanksgiving and got out the day before New Yearâs. I got into remission again and had 12 to 13 wonderful months.â
Then came a routine check-up this past May 1 and some devastating news. Even though he hadnât felt it, the cancer had âcome back with a vengeance.â Within three days he was back in the hospital and going through chemo again.
âHe never panicked,â said Rosie. âIâve never seen him frazzled or fearful or upset. He has such peace about him.â
She said a lot of it has to do with his strong Catholic faith.
âHe really puts everything in Godâs hands,â she said. âHe has an unbelievable solid rock faith and that has really helped me and our children through this.â
Dave said he adopted a mantra in this last battle with cancer: âheal or heaven.â
âI figured either way it would be a win-win for me,â he said.
As his treatment moved to the James Cancer Hospital in Columbus, doctors told him his only hope of surviving would be a bone marrow transplant.
His three children all were tested as potential donors and each was a 50 percent match.
But eldest daughter Jacque was about to have a baby and Matt is a Fairfield Township police sergeant and is often out among the public in these risky COVID-19 days, so he wasnât the safest candidate.
Youngest daughter Holly remained a viable donor, but then Debbie â who has had health issues of her own â volunteered.
âI had just a 25 percent chance of being a match for him, but they tested me because there really was no one else,â she said. âAnd I met all the HLA markers. I was identical, a 100 percent match!
âAnd there was no question then. Heâs always been the best brother ever.â
âWelcome Home Daveâ
This is not the first medical miracle Dave and Debbie have been through.
âOur mom had us when she was 41, so she was high risk,â Dave said.
Not only were he and his sister born two months premature, but Dave said no one expected this was a double pregnancy: âI weighed 2 pounds, 9 ounces and when they got me out the doctor said, âHey, thereâs another one in there!ââ
âHe was taking up too much room so I kicked him out first,â cracked Debbie, who said she weighed just 2 pounds 2 ounces.
âWe were born at Grandview and back then they didnât have all the equipment like they have now,â she said. âThere was no neonatal intensive care unit. They put us in incubators, but I think they told our parents, âAaah, theyâve probably not gonna live.â
âBut we did. We were born in September of â55 and didnât get out of the hospital until 1956.â
As the fraternal twins grew up, they showed they were very different people with very different personalities.
âOh yeah, heâs real nice and soft spoken,â Debbie laughed. âEverybody loves Dave. Iâm more the loud-mouthed one. Blunt. Spicy.â
While Dave stuck around Moraine his whole life, kept the same job and raised a family, Debbie was a nurse, moved around a lot and never married.
âI donât know if I want to use the word vagabond, but she travelled a lot,â Dave said.
Debbie said she worked in the cardiovascular intensive care unit (CICU) of a hospital outside of Pittsburgh for a decade, then worked in the CICU at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta and in a hospice ward in Jacksonville, Fla.
Five years ago, with Daveâs help, she moved back here and now lives in Kettering.
When she decided to be her brotherâs donor, Debbie committed herself to becoming as healthy as she could, Rosie said.
At the James, Debbie said she donated 4.2 million stem cells and Dave received the transplant Aug. 17.
He spent 34 days in the hospital and another 3 ½ months staying at a nearby Airbnb where Rosie had been living since heâd had the transplant. With the COVID regulations limiting access to the hospital, sheâd had very specific times to visit him.
She said doctors marveled because of how much walking Dave had done in the hospital and then through the Columbus metro parks and on other hikes in the city â sometimes going up to 5 to 6 miles at a time.
The couple finally was able to return to Moraine on Dec. 5.
As they were headed back to their subdivision, they passed the local fire station where a huge banner had been erected that read:
âWelcome Home Dave!â
âEvery day ... is Christmas to meâ
When Dave was first diagnosed with AML and was hospitalized, Rosie thought she was going to have to bring him home in a wheelchair and worried how theyâd be able to navigate their carpeted floors.
She mentioned to a neighbor that they were thinking of ripping out the carpet and putting in a hardwood floor and asked him if he knew who she could talk to for an estimate.
The next thing she knew some 50 people in the community â neighbors, friends, Daveâs old classmates, people from church and work â banded together and put in a new, hardwood floor for free.
âI wouldnât live in any other community than Moraine,â Dave said. âEvery time Iâve had cancer people here have rallied around me and my family. Theyâve just been awesome.â
Rosie agreed: âTheyâve gone beyond what people normally do for someone. Itâs just a wonderful group of people. There just so much love here in Moraine. And I think all that has helped Dave survive this, too.
âI really believe, in so many ways, this healing is a miracle.â
As she was recounting their story the other day, she admitted a hesitance sheâd been struggling with:
âI feel a little awkward telling our story right now. I know so many people are hurting now. So many people are suffering from COVID, so many people have passed away and families are grieving now. Iâve worried this might not be a good time to tell all this now.â
Actually, itâs the perfect time.
People need a story of struggle where something good happens.
And though, as Debbie said, her brother âisnât out of the woodsâ yet, he has had so many good things happen over the past six years, especially recently.
âOver and over God shows us we can enjoy life,â Rosie said.
In the past 19 months Dave said heâs seen his first grandchild born (Jacque gave birth to daughter Elizabeth on Oct. 30) and both his son Matt and daughter Holly were married (in the summer of 2019).
Rosie said Dave walked Holly down the aisle at St. Albertâs Catholic Church on Far Hills Ave. and then gave a touching toast and prayer at the reception.
Like Dave said: âEvery day really is Christmas to me.â
Yet this Christmas Day â with Daveâs immune system compromised and the threat of COVID everywhere â the family will mostly celebrate separately.
Over in Kettering, Debbie said she doesnât mind:
âI donât want any presents. My brother being alive is enough of a present for me. Thatâs as good as it gets.â
Thatâs a Christmas miracle.
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