After his own diagnosis, fire chief to climb skyscraper for blood cancer research

Eugene Springfield Fire Chief Mike Caven will climb 69 flights of stairs in March to raise money for blood cancer research, a cause that became personal when he was diagnosed with a rare, slow-growing blood cancer early last year.

Caven will compete in Blood Cancer United’s annual firefighter stairclimb in Seattle’s Columbia Tower on March 21, scaling 1,356 steps in full gear. His treatment is ongoing, but he said he feels ready for a challenge he has long wanted to take on.

“We’ve had firefighters participate in it forever, but this last year, being diagnosed with blood cancer myself, it’s just kind of a spot where I feel good enough with treatment, and maybe a little piece of wanting to prove that I’ve still got that in me,” Caven said in an interview.

His diagnosis came after a screening that Caven himself fought to bring to the fire department, before he became chief in 2022.

As president of International Association of Fire Fighters Local 851, the firefighters union, he successfully pushed during contract bargaining for Eugene Springfield Fire to adopt firefighter-specific physical exams. 

The physicals, known as NFPA 1582 exams, include cancer screenings to catch occupational health issues early. Firefighters face higher rates of cancer due to repeated exposure to carcinogens in smoke, soot and toxic chemicals on the job. Caven was fire chief when the department eventually implemented the new policy.

“It was, I guess, poetic that I was the first case of cancer that they found in that process,” Caven said. 

Shortly before his diagnosis, Caven said he experienced fatigue, headaches and insomnia, all symptoms he assumed stemmed from routine job stress. 

After he completed the firefighter-specific physical with other department staff, he recalled being told, “This is weird, and maybe it’s something that you would normally watch, but given your risk profile, you should just get it ruled out.”

Follow-up appointments confirmed he had cancer. He described his near-term prognosis as “pretty good.”

“The treatment hasn’t fixed it, [but] it hasn’t gotten worse,” Caven said. “Generally, I feel well most of the time.”

There are a few other firefighters who work or have worked in the department that have been diagnosed with rare cancers in recent years, he said. 

Caven said Blood Cancer United allows others to access treatment that insurance doesn’t cover and funds research that extends the lives of people with blood cancer and spares them from more aggressive treatments.

More than a dozen other firefighters with Eugene Springfield Fire will join Caven in the stair climb, which attracts about 2,000 annual competitors and has raised more than $32 million for blood cancer research, patient support, advocacy and access to care since its establishment in 1991.

Caven said many firefighters have ties to the event or others like it because of the job’s occupational health risks and the patients paramedics see on calls.

“I have a treatment that has a potential to cause remission that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to access,” Caven said. 

Since beginning to solicit donations Sept. 30, Caven has raised more than $8,400, as of Wednesday, Nov. 4, with a goal of bringing in $20,000. He is currently the competition’s top fundraiser.

He joked that the effort, which consists of “shaking down” friends across the country, has become a “little hyperfixation” that offers a distraction from sleepless nights. Caven, 45, has also started training for the stair climb and wants to finish in under 20 minutes. 

“After I started to get interest, I kept raising my goal higher because it seemed achievable,” Caven said, adding: “Once I got into the fundraising, it took on a life of its own.”

Caven said he kept his diagnosis private for “quite a while” before sharing it with firefighters this year as the department ramped up its physicals.

“I sat with it long enough,” Caven said, about his decision to speak publicly. “There’s just places where it can be helpful in telling the story, and helping make sure that we can take care of our folks, and also just help people be aware of the different risks that we face in the fire service.”