Despite tumor, man had enviable outlook on life

A man whose obituary lists a "cranky 1996 Dodge Caravan" as one of his survivors had to be someone with a humorous take on life.

"He hung on to it forever. He ran it into the ground," said Jan Lutz, sister-in-law to Kenneth Bieschke of St. Charles. Mr. Bieschke, 47, died at home Sunday, 18 months into a battle against brain cancer. He was profiled earlier this summer in a Daily Herald article about living with brain tumors such as his, a glioma, after Sen. Edward Kennedy was diagnosed with one.

Mr. Bieschke was diagnosed in February 2007, after suffering headaches and personality changes.

Doctors were able to remove 90 percent of the tumor from his left frontal lobe, but none on the right.

He had radiation for 38 days to shrink the rest of the cancer cells, followed by chemotherapy to kill them.

But the drugs lost their effectiveness this past April, and the tumor started growing again.

A medication port was inserted in his scalp in May to administer another kind of medication.

Meanwhile, steroids given to reduce the effects of the tumor on his speech and language processing ability caused the once-athletic man to gain 60 pounds.

It's not that Mr. Bieschke didn't have his dark moments after the diagnosis, questioning "Why me?" But he chose to face the disease, with its 90 percent mortality rate, with his customary philosophy about accepting reality: "It is what it is."

"What are you going to do? Sit there and cry in your milk? It doesn't work that way," he said in the June 23 article. "Are you on borrowed time? Yeah, but it's good borrowed time. If I can get another six months out of this, that'd be great. If I get two months out of it, that'd be great, too. It's been a great ride."

"He never lost who he was," said another sister-in-law, Kate Bieschke, who is married to Ken's brother Tom.

Mr. Bieschke coached girls soccer when the family lived in Bartlett, and the St. Charles Storm youth traveling basketball team for four years. A former Bartlett neighbor, Jake Krzeczowski, dedicated his fall 2007 football season to Mr. Bieschke and another family friend - the St. Charles East senior etched Mr. Bieschke's initials on his cleats.

"He was always looking for the fun things to do in life," said Lutz, whose sister, Barb, met Ken at Hersey High School.

They started dating after high school, and Barb fell in love with Ken because he made her laugh.

The Dodge Caravan was a family joke, said Kate Bieschke. Ken's father bought the van about the same time Tom and young Ken were starting their families, and both families coveted the vehicle, she said, laughing. ("Dad was so proud of that minivan," she recalled.)

They would vie for the chance to borrow it for family trips, and jokingly argued over who would inherit it.

Ken did, being the oldest son, and proudly continued to drive it; it now has 220,000 miles on it.

"Losing Ken is just a tragedy. We all feel quite robbed," Kate Bieschke said.

Ken and Barb met while attending Hersey High School and later started dating. He graduated from Illinois State University. They married and had two children, Caren and Tyler.

Ken worked in the tile industry, eventually becoming regional sales manager for Virginia Tile and president of the Chicago Floorcovering Association.

Visitation will be from 4 to 9 p.m. today at Yurs Funeral Home, 405 E. Main St., St. Charles. A funeral Mass is at 10 a.m. Thursday at Resurrection Catholic Church, 30W350 Army Trail Road, Wayne. Interment will be in Oakhill Cemetery, Geneva.

Donations to the Ken Bieschke Memorial Fund are being accepted at Harris Bank.