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San Antonian Rob Shaver’s two-decade fight with stage 4 Ewing sarcoma, an aggressive cancer, is explored in the award-winning short documentary “The Life We Have.”<\/p>\n
Courtesy Wondercamp<\/p>\n
Rob Shaver created a burial fund for himself in college after he was diagnosed with stage four Ewing sarcoma<\/a> and doctors told him he might not live to see 30.<\/p>\n More than 20 years later, the money is still in the bank.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n “The Life We Have,” a new documentary about Rob Shaver’s two-decade fight with cancer, includes a performance he gave to an invited audience. Shaver is a life-long singer who found that singing helped with his lung capacity.<\/p>\n Courtesy Wondercamp<\/p>\n \u201cSo many kids like me that have this disease don\u2019t even get close to 40,\u201d\u00a0 Shaver, 49, said in a 2024 interview with the Express-News. \u201cI feel like I owe it to them and their families to be grateful for what I\u2019ve got and do the best with it that I can.\u201d<\/p>\n He thought that his story might help others with their struggles. That\u2019s why he pitched an idea for a documentary to REI<\/a>, his employer at the time, which has a film arm<\/a> in addition to selling outdoor equipment.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The award-winning short film, titled \u201cThe Life We Have,\u201d <\/a>explores Shaver’s experience with terminal illness and his refusal to give in to it, focusing instead on things that he could do while he could do them. It also zooms in on his close relationship with his mother Paula Shaver and his brother Rich Shaver, who have long served as his primary caregivers and champions.<\/p>\n The original idea was to capture his commitment to running, which he credits for helping to extend his life. As the film was being shot, he had a recurrence, and he and director Sam\u00a0Price-Waldman<\/a> decided that needed to be in the film, too, as did his music. So what had been intended as an eight-to-10-minute running film became a 24-minute film that digs into mortality, caregiving and other big issues.<\/p>\n More film: New PBS doc produced by Ken Burns features SA scholar<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Shavers\u2019 lives are very different now than they were then. Rob Shaver has been in hospice care since last year and is paralyzed from the waist down. He spends his days in a hospital bed in his bedroom, and his mom and his brother handle the lion\u2019s share of his care. They recently were able to hire an aide who can care for him a few days a week.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are superheroes,\u201d Rob Shaver said.<\/p>\n The documentary “The Life We Have” is about the two-decade fight with cancer waged by Rob Shaver (from right) with the help of his mother Paula Shaver and his brother Rich Shaver.<\/p>\n Courtesy Wondercamp<\/p>\n \u201cThe Life We Have,\u201d which was released to the public in February, made it into film festivals across the country. It won the Audience Choice Short Award at the Telluride\u00a0Mountainfilm Festival,<\/a> Best Short Documentary at the American Documentary and Animation Film Festival<\/a> and Best of the Fest award at the Flagstaff Mountain Film Festival.\u00a0 <\/a>It received a Webby Award<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The documentary has found an audience on Vimeo and on YouTube, where it has racked up just over 306,000 views and prompted more than 500 comments. \u00a0Viewers write about the inspiration they\u2019ve taken from the film, about how it helped them shift their perspective and live their lives differently. Some are cancer patients who recognize their own struggles and send encouraging messages to the Shavers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s affecting people,\u201d Paula Shaver said. \u201cNow Rob is paralyzed and sicker and life is different and everything like that\u00a0\u2014 there\u2019s cancer everywhere\u00a0\u2014 but his story and his legacy is important to hundreds of thousands of people.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I have to say that the film has taken a different role in our lives and in Rob\u2019s life than it would have if he hadn\u2019t gotten so sick. You know the saying, give me my flowers before I die? People in the comments, they will even say, \u2018I hope Rob\u2019s reading these comments.\u2019 And, of course, we don\u2019t respond to any of them. But he is reading their comments.\u201d<\/p>\n Rob Shaver hasn\u2019t been able to see the film with an audience \u2013 by the time it was released, he was too ill. But his mother and brother have gone to a few film festivals and also have participated in a few screenings in San Antonio, including one for running groups at Eisenhower Park. They report back to him on how things have gone.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n He has been floored by the way his story resonates with people.<\/p>\n \u201cI probably had the least expectation,\u201d he said. \u201cI just wanted the story out there, that there\u2019s someone who was not given any time 20 years ago and who\u2019s still here 20 years later. I just wanted that known, just so other people that were like me, looking for hope, looking for examples of hope, could find it.\u201d<\/p>\n Price-Waldman has been struck by the intensity of the responses to the film.<\/p>\n San Antonian Rob Shaver’s two-decade fight with stage 4 Ewing sarcoma, an aggressive cancer, is explored in the award-winning documentary “The Life We Have.”<\/p>\n Courtesy Wondercamp<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been the craziest thing to feel it resonate in the world and almost feel like it\u2019s alive in its own way,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen Rob and I were talking about this project, what we really wanted to achieve was we want to help people in their own challenges, in their own struggles. So it\u2019s been crazy, literally crazy, to see it actually doing those things.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Running and singing and cancer<\/p>\n Rob Shaver was in his 20s when he received his initial diagnosis of Ewing sarcoma, an aggressive cancer. In the decades that followed, his health went up and down, with brief periods when he was relatively OK followed by recurrences.<\/p>\n After a 2020 recurrence, a\u00a0pulmonologist advised him to do whatever he could to strengthen his lungs. To that end, he committed to running at least one mile a day, every day, for as long as his body would allow. He ultimately ran every single day for three years, two months and 20 days, racking up 8,000 miles.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019ve been given such negative time frames, when you start winning these chunks of time, by doing something as simple as \u2018I\u2019m going to jog a mile today\u2019 or \u2018I\u2019m going to walk around the block three times,\u2019 it just ups you mentally,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so I started doing that consistently.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n That led him to set another goal. He wanted to sing again.<\/p>\n Shaver went to pharmacy school and earned his PhD but was never able to practice because of his illness. He occasionally had thought about pursuing music professionally. He grew up singing in church and in school groups, and he sang with bands, too.<\/p>\n \u201cHe sang with groups, but he never really took it places, because of his situation, because he was sick all the time,\u201d his brother said.<\/p>\n Rob Shaver, shown in 2024 in the music room of his home, has been fighting cancer for more than 20 years. His story is told in the new short documentary “The Life We Have. “<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Jessica Phelps\/San Antonio Express News<\/p>\n For a while, he was too sick to sing\u00a0at all.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI literally coughed more than I breathed normally,\u201d he said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t go out in public because I coughed all the time. And I thought, I\u2019m going to get to where I can sing.\u201d<\/p>\n He did. And with the encouragement of his mother, he also auditioned for and was cast in the Playhouse (now the San Pedro Playhouse) productions of the vocally challenging musicals \u201cRagtime\u201d and \u201cLes Miserables\u201d in 2013. He also appeared in the Renaissance Guild\u2019s staging of \u201cBlack Nativity\u201d as well as other shows.<\/p>\n He kept singing. When he looked into how to enhance lung capacity, singing was on the list. So it became just as important to him as running.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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