Jim Miller steps back into the Octagon on Saturday night at UFC 328 in Newark, New Jersey, and he is doing it for more than a line on his record. The lightweight veteran will fight Jared Gordon in what will be his 47th career UFC bout, with a chance to earn his 28th victory.
The fight is Miller's first since his son, Wyatt, beat cancer, and the 44-year-old said the return carries a different weight than any of the dozens of other times he has walked out under the lights. He said, "I'm not just out there just to win," adding that he is fighting "to make me happy; to make me excited with the way that happens."
Wyatt Miller was diagnosed with rhadbomyosacroma, a rare form of childhood cancer that started as a growth of cells in soft tissue and was found in his left eye socket and sinus area. Last July, he first complained that it felt like something was stuck in his eye, and a noticeable lump proved cancerous. He then went through two courses of chemotherapy and five weeks of proton radiation at Rutgers University Cancer Institute.
The family now faces a long follow-up. Wyatt will need scans and MRIs about every three months for the next year or so to make sure the cancer has not returned, and he will need checkups for rhadbomyosacroma well into his 20s. Miller said the ordeal brought out the strain of a system in which fighters are independent contractors, and he pays for his own health insurance plan for his family. He said the out-of-pocket bills and other expenses piled up during Wyatt's cancer battle, even as the treatment began quickly and helped keep the disease from spreading to the lungs.
Miller built his reputation on durability and reliability, and he remains tied for second in UFC history for the most finishes and most submissions. He has four children, and he called Wyatt "He's just a stud," and "He's just an amazing young man." For Miller, Saturday is another fight on the schedule. For his family, it is the first one since cancer stopped being the headline.
He said, "It is what it is, right? We are contractors and that's the way it goes," and credited the speed of the response. "We acted quickly, and he got treatment quickly, and he needed it quickly. We were lucky it was just where it was because it tends to spread to the lungs."
