University of North Carolina Athletics
Priceless Gem
January 6, 2015 | Baseball, Football
Carolina legend Danny Talbott performed at the highest level on both the football field and baseball diamond during his years as a Tar Heel. Since 2010, he's been back in Chapel Hill, battling the toughest opponent he's faced: multiple myeloma. He can't imagine going anywhere else to do it.
by Zach Read, UNC Health Care
It's the day before Thanksgiving and Danny Talbott is resting in the Outpatient Infusion Center on the third floor of the N.C. Cancer Hospital. He's been receiving treatment for multiple myeloma, a cancer of a type of white blood cell called a plasma cell. The condition is nothing to laugh at, yet Danny is able to muster a smile and crack a joke any time someone enters the room. He even makes light of his condition.
“If I die, then I go to heaven,” says Danny, a Rocky Mount, North Carolina, native and resident and a 2003 inductee in the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. “If I beat this, then I get to stick around and give my friends a hard time. It's a win-win.”
A few minutes pass. Then, a nurse pokes her head through the curtain in the room and looks down at Danny.
“What are you doing?” she asks, surprised that she didn't hear his voice in the hallway. “Behaving? Actually behaving?”
To read the entire story, visit the UNC Health Care website at uncmedne.ws/PricelessGem.
