MoreOver the course of the winter and spring, land surveyor Nick Luchycky noticed he was losing weight and was out of breath. At first, he attributed it to changes to his regular exercise routine and the demanding work of a surveyor ...
Fundraiser for Gypsum surveyor Nick Luchycky, who has leukemia, is Saturday night in Eagle
Kathy Heicher
kheicher@eaglevalleyenterprise.com
GYPSUM, Colorado - Nick Luchycky, 33, of Gypsum, Colorado got a crash course in life last spring.
Over the course of the preceding winter and spring Luchycky, who works as a land surveyor, had noticed he was losing weight and was out of breath. An athletic man, Luchycky attributed those changes to his regular exercise workouts and a demanding work schedule.
Last winter’s heavy snows were tough for surveyors. Luchycky needed to shovel a lot of snow before he could set up his survey instruments for each job.
Then the night sweats started. A couple of times a week, Luchycky would wake up at 4 a.m., drenched in sweat.
In early May, he made a trip to Japan to visit a brother. The symptoms intensified. Still, he was inclined to just muster through what he assumed was a temporary condition.
Luchycky’s boss, Ted Archibeque of Archibeque Land Services, says his employees noticed that Luchycky, a survey “party chief,” was noticeably thinner after the trip to Japan.
“We told him he was getting too skinny ... that he was going to blow away,” Archibeque recalls. Luchycky still insisted that he “felt fine.”
On Memorial Day weekend, at a barbecue where he and long-time friend Mike Reynolds, of Grand Junction, were celebrating their birthdays, Luchycky’s friends expressed shock at his weight loss and weakness.
“Then I saw a picture of myself, and I knew I didn’t look right,” Luchycky says.
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