When his car rolled out of the trailer for the World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte, the McGhee Motorsports entry was adorned with a striking lymphoma awareness wrap. In a sometime cutthroat business where loyalty can come at a premium, this act was not lost on the driver.
“The fact that they did that for me was cool,” Price-Miller said. “They stood by me.”
When he wanted to travel to Florida to start the season despite his ongoing treatments, the squad also stepped up and demonstrated its support wasn‘t fleeting, as they elected to run a second car for Price-Miller. Now, it was Scott Ronk who was touched, “They didn‘t have to pull down that second car in Florida,” he said. “But he got to do those two nights and came back to chemo.”
Chemo was a snap back to reality that wasn‘t easy. Price-Miller does not sugarcoat it.
“I didn‘t know what to think,” he said. “It didn‘t really feel real until all the doctor‘s appointments started happening and the needles and scans and the treatments. It definitely wasn‘t fun.”
In a position to put his treatment in the rearview mirror he‘s perfectly willing to share his experience. “As crazy as this sounds, it has gone just about as good as it possibly could,” Price-Miller noted. “I have great doctors and great support and my family has always been there for me. But yes, it‘s been really tough. The doctors said we can either do a mild chemo or do a hardcore treatment and get this done quicker.
“I said, ‘Let‘s do that. I don‘t want to do this for a year.‘ I wanted to do it in two or three months. The stuff I did really beat me up and made me feel really sick and weak. I went every three weeks for treatment,” Price-Miller continued. “What is crazy is the first round was bad, but I got better after the first five days. With the second one I got sick, but about day four or five I felt like someone was standing on my chest. So I went back to the hospital and they did some tests and some scans. They sent me home, but then they called me about 7 p.m. and said, ‘We need you to go to ER right now. We found blood clots in your lungs.‘
“So that was a setback and I had to take blood thinners for a while. The pain lasted for a long time,” he noted. “Round three was actually my easiest because they had figured out my premeds and how to help with the nausea. So round three I did chemo on Thursday, Friday I kind of laid in bed all day and Saturday I went with my grandpa to watch some Indiana regional basketball. I felt really good.”
The latest reports are encouraging and at press time Price-Miller had completed his treatments and was awaiting an important post-treatment scan.
Ronk laughs at how Price-Miller managed to arrange all his tests and treatments around racing. He has been a part of this young man‘s life forever, so he knows that one factor in his stepson‘s recovery is his positive outlook. It is an outlook he calls “Parkerland.”
Elaborating, Ronk observed that “an 80 percent chance of rain means it‘s a 20 percent chance that it is not going to rain to Parker Price-Miller. He will drive all the way to California betting on the 20 percent.”
Despite still undergoing radiation treatment at the time, Price-Miller was back racing full time when the All Star tour kicked off in mid-April.
One man keeping a watchful eye on his charge is crew chief Kevin Osmolski. The Pennsylvania native worked with Price-Miller at Destiny Motorsports and is in his second stint working with Sam McGhee. Osmolski considers Parker his friend, so this is both personal and business.
“He was going from doctor to doctor and we didn‘t know how much we were going to be able to race with him and when you run a team like a business and you spend all this money you have to go race,” Osmolski said. “We were hoping that we didn‘t have to do anything and at the end of the day we hoped he would get better so we can do this full time.”
During the midst of the treatments, Osmolski was impressed with Price-Miller‘s strength and attitude.
“I think he is doing pretty good,” Osmolski said. “Honestly, if you are around him you wouldn‘t know anything was going on. You don‘t talk much about it. You try to keep him positive and try not to bring it up. You just make sure he gets done what he needs to get done to put it behind him.”
Osmolski also believes battling lymphoma has strengthened Price-Miller‘s resilience.
“I feel he is more determined than he has been. It gives you a little more motivation and he finally has an opportunity where he doesn‘t have to rely on his family to put him in a race car or support him in another car,” he said. “That‘s an opportunity that he hasn‘t really had in the past. I feel like that is a positive for him, too. He can focus solely on racing and he doesn‘t have to worry about working on his own stuff. He can just race.”