Dying of Cancer, Man Is Running for His Life : Health: Bill Shrader has a malignant growth on his tongue and has devised a dietary treatment--but no slowing down. He’s pleased with the results.

With four medals already around his neck, Bill Shrader decided to take a breather and skip the marathon.

So he rested on the final day of competition at New York’s Empire State Games, settling for a gold in the 200-meter dash, silvers in the 800 meters and 1,600 meters and a bronze in the 400 meters--all won in 48 hours by a slightly built, 75-year-old man who, his doctors say, is dying of cancer.

“I’m keeping it in check,” he said. “It’s not getting any worse. It’s getting better, actually.”

It’s getting better, Shrader believes, because he has never stopped running, even after he received the sobering news of his illness last September.

“I was putting some spray paint on my car and the next day I had a sore throat,” he said. “And when it lasted for three days, I said, well, I’d better take a look, and I opened my mouth, looked down and I had this growth on my tongue.”

A biopsy revealed terminal oral cancer.

“They said I would probably only last a year, which would be about August,” he said, chuckling. Bill Shrader laughs a lot these days, especially when he thinks of what might have been.

“They wanted me to have all this surgery, cut a third of my tongue away, cut all through here,” he said, pointing at his shoulder.

He would have lost the use of his arm and it would have taken six months to try to learn to talk again. He said forget it.

“By the time I got done with all that stuff, I would have lost all my strength. I figured, what the hell, I’d rather have one good year than two bad years. I said, ‘No, I’ll see what I can do myself.’ ”

So he went to the library, studied up on cancer, and devised his own treatment, which includes eating mainly fruits and vegetables and doing plenty of running.

“The thing I notice with my exercise is whenever I run 5 to 10 miles, these things (cancerous oral tumors) all practically go away,” he said. “My theory about it is that it’s kicking your immune system in. It seems to be working.”

In nine cases out of 10, oral cancer strikes males in their 60s who usually are heavy smokers and may be heavy drinkers, according to Dr. Donald Shedd, chief of the department of head and neck surgery at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y.

Of Shrader’s solution, he said: “I would have a great deal of trouble believing it. It would be unheard of.”

It is not unheard of around here. Word of Shrader’s exploits--he won three gold medals, a silver and a bronze at the New York state Senior Games earlier this year--has spread. He has become an inspiration for many cancer patients.

“People that have cancer have called me up and asked me about it,” he said. “I don’t try to tell them what to do because not everybody is alike. I tell them what I do, but I don’t know how many people would be willing to go out and run 5 or 10 miles a day. I’ve been running pretty much my whole life.”

The running began in high school in Norwalk, Conn., where Shrader became the record-setting captain of his high school track team. He went on to Harvard and graduated with the class of 1937, but instead of joining corporate America like many of his classmates, he retreated to rural Upstate New York just west of Albany, opened an export-import business, and reared a family of 12. His wife died five years ago.

Cancer is not a new experience for Shrader. His brother, John, died from it not long after returning from active duty in World War II.

“When he came back, he was a nervous wreck,” Shrader said. “Cigarette after cigarette. Three packs a day. I think that’s what did it.

“I used to hate to go in and see him. He had all the chemotherapy, he was sedated, his body would quiver, he didn’t know what was going on. You’ve got to go sometime, but I’d rather go the easy way.”

Shrader developed a precancerous growth 25 years ago. Doctors said it could turn malignant if he did not have it removed, so he underwent about 30 radiation treatments, which he now regrets.

“I think that put the cancer in my system,” he said.

“The doctor told me, and I didn’t pay any attention to him--when you’re 50, you don’t worry about being 70--there’ll be no side-effects, but when you’re 70, you’ll probably get cancer,” Shrader said. “I didn’t even think about it. I remember it now. He was right; I did get cancer at 70.”

That did not slow him down, though. He went out and ran a 50-mile race in 10 hours and 4 minutes, breaking the national record for his age group by two hours.

He’s been running hard ever since.

“I feel so much better when I run,” he said. “If I get up and don’t run, I don’t feel good. I think it really works your system. If I run a half-mile or a mile, it doesn’t really kick in. But if I start running 5 or 10 miles, I think the continuing circulation that you get is what really does it.

“But you’ve got to keep a balance on what you do. If you overdo it, I think you wear your body down. Whenever I feel tired, I go to bed right away. I try to get as much sleep as I can.”