Mother's breast cancer taught Hawks potential client to focus on positive

Michael Paliotta sensed something was wrong. His mother was making too many trips to the doctor for a healthy woman in her mid-40s.

One day Paliotta, then 16, came home from boarding school about a 45-minute drive from their home in Westport, Conn., and his mother casually dropped the news that changed the lives of the all-American family of six: Trish Paliotta had breast cancer.

"I actually kind of saw it coming," said Michael Paliotta, now 18 and among 46 players on the ice this weekend for the Blackhawks' prospects camp. "She had been seeing a lot of doctors.

"But she really never let it affect her, and one night it came up at dinner and she was almost laughing about it, saying, 'I just have to see a couple of more doctors and maybe have a little surgery, but I'll be fine. You know I go to the doctor a lot.' "

The nonchalant disclosure of her illness was by design as the family ¡ª Michael, younger siblings Dan, Kate and Will and dad Mike ¡ª was still mourning the recent death of a close relative.

"I had individual conversations with each child," Trish Paliotta said via phone from Connecticut. "Michael is very mature for his age. There was no hiding anything from Michael. We just kind of brought it up as casually as we could.

"It did get emotional because his grandmother had recently passed away from colon cancer. It came on the heels of her passing, and it scared him."

Watching Michael Paliotta stride to the podium June 25 in St. Paul, Minn., as the Hawks' third-round draft pick (70th overall) or fling his 6-foot-3, 198-pound frame into the corners during drills, it's hard to imagine the young defenseman scared of anything.

"It's cancer," he said. "Anytime someone has cancer, it's a scary thing. I was young and really didn't know that much about it. Now I look back and see all the therapy she went through. She only had Stage 1. She caught it really early, and we're really fortunate for that."

Not long after Trish, who is now cancer-free, told Michael of her illness, she made him promise he wouldn't research it on the Internet. Instead, they focused on positive things and incorporated her treatment ¡ª which included chemotherapy and surgery ¡ª into their daily lives.

"For about half a day, I actually contemplated my mortality," Trish said. "If I had pulled the shades and just retired to my bedroom, that would have had a really negative impact on my kids. Once I did the research and did my tests, I realized I was one of the fortunate people who caught it early, and I started to think in a more positive way."

Those positive thoughts helped her family through the difficult time.

"The biggest thing was her attitude toward the cancer and the way she responded to it," Michael said. "She was really confident in herself. Nothing led me to believe she was going to lose the battle.

"She never really let it affect her daily routine. She worked out really hard and fought it off. It's definitely something that has rubbed off on me and made me a better person for it."

His mother's poise and determination throughout her illness also made him a better hockey player. Things like giveaways in his own zone, missed scoring opportunities or bad penalties no longer affected him the way they might other teenagers.

"I use the mentality that sometimes things can go wrong, but you have to stay positive in all situations," Michael said. "You remain confident and just battle through things."

During the time of his mother's treatments, Michael made what he called a "difficult" decision to leave Connecticut for Ann Arbor, Mich., to go to school and join the U.S. national team developmental program.

"I thought God must be a hockey fan," Trish, 46, said. "I was diagnosed in March and was done with my treatment in time to bring him out to Michigan in September."

It was with the developmental team that Michael had his greatest triumph when Team USA defeated Sweden for the gold medal in the 2011 under-18 championship in Germany. Trish and Mike Paliotta were on hand to see it.

"She saw how happy I was, and she knew that I was having a good time, and I think that might have helped her a little bit," said Michael, who will attend the University of Vermont in the fall.

Trish Paliotta believes seeing her son succeed and mature has helped her recovery.

"We were all distracted in a very good way, and I was still healthy and able to go to all his games," she said. "That probably was very encouraging for him. I just didn't want for him, whenever he went on the ice, to have negative thoughts. I always told him that the most important thing was to get rid of the negative thoughts and focus on the positive. So I guess we kind of helped each other."

Posted in Breast Cancer