There will come a day when John Szott will allow himself the luxury of acting his age. Maybe a disappointing grade, or dinging the car door in a parking lot, will spark the kind of high drama exclusive to teenagers.

Until then, John, 18, can roll up a sleeve and display the purplish bruises on his forearm, marks left behind by more than two months of chemotherapy treatment. He's nine weeks into a 12-week regimen of intravenous assault on the Hodgkin's lymphoma that so abruptly changed his life. A round of radiation therapy will follow.

And if the needles and the drugs have caused his veins to burn and his forearms to feel scorched, he figures, what's the point in complaining?

"If this is the worst that's going to happen, that it gets to the point where I can't touch it, I'll just ignore it," said John, a senior at Bethel Park High School who will attend Washington & Jefferson next year.

After the family's initial visit to the oncologist, said his mother, Valerie, they got into the car and "John got real quiet."

"I thought 'Oh boy, here comes the meltdown.' But he said, 'Mom this might be a life lesson. … I want to help other kids get through this, it'll be OK.'

John is an athlete, one of the top divers in the state. He had no history of serious illness; in fact, there was no family history of cancer.

According to National Cancer Institutes statistics, more than 8,000 Americans are diagnosed with Hodgkin's each year, but it is often curable.

During Thanksgiving break, John was staying over at the home of Chuck Fara, his best friend since middle school. Waking up that morning, John discovered a lump near his collarbone. But he shrugged it off.

They stopped at the Szott house to pick up a hoodie before going to the movies later that day. When he pointed it out to his mother, she played it cool. Inside, she said, she froze.

"I knew the minute I touched his neck that Sunday, I walked into the kitchen and told my husband, 'We are in so much trouble,'?" said Mrs. Szott, who is a medical lab technologist.

"One day you're thinking about college and prom coming up, the next day, you're picking an oncologist."

Team Szott

The diagnosis of Hodgkin's explained at least one mystery. John qualified for the PIAA Class AAA diving championships as a junior. His goal this year was to win a medal at the state finals and to that end, had a solid summer of camps and training with the elite junior team at the University of Pittsburgh.

But early in the season, he struggled through practices: "I remember Ray [Murray, Bethel's coach] asking me after practice, 'Why are you so winded? Are you just out of shape because it's the beginning of the season?' and we'd be joking about it."

Just walking from the school parking lot to homeroom caused him to gasp for breath.

A PET CT-scan revealed a startling discovery: John had a 7-inch-long tumor pressing against his trachea.

At this point, chemotherapy was a given. It was just a matter of which course, and what that might mean to John's determination to keep attending school and diving.

"I didn't even know what it [Hodgkin's lymphoma] was," he said. "I said, 'Can you take a pill to fix it?'

The cancer confirmed, John stayed home from school for a day.

"I was scared but I said I'm going to be mature about this. I am going to be an adult," he recalled.

There were a few cracks in the calm: "I remember that night I had such a mental breakdown. I went over to my girlfriend's house; she's been such a help with this."

Sara Lewandowski is a junior at Bethel Park, a swimmer who recently earned two medals at the PIAA championships and knows the rigors of training.

When John began to lose his hair, she cut off 10 inches of hers and donated it to Locks of Love. Similarly, Bethel Park boys' swim team members and Mr. Murray shaved their heads -- the bald look is never out of place at a pool -- and began wearing bright orange "Team Szott" wristbands.

A new routine

When the family had a definite diagnosis, Mrs. Szott called the school and arranged for John's core classes to be moved to the morning, so he could be finished by lunchtime if he needed to go to the doctor.

Each Tuesday afternoon since the beginning of February, John has been going to the UPMC Cancer Center in Upper St. Clair for his chemotherapy treatments.

It's boring and rather uncomfortable, although John said he believes he's tolerating it better than expected. There's been hair loss and some stomach upset, but there have also been promising results.

"I just had a PET-CT scan, and from what I understand, [the tumor] was seven inches on my chest and it's shrunk down to two inches," he said.

On Tuesdays, the routine following chemo is this: go home, camp out on the couch, watch Food Network programming.

Watching Bobby Flay or Giada DeLaurentiis go through the creative process, he discovered, was soothing.

Sundays mean a trip to Mrs. Szott's parents' house in Scott, where aunts, uncles and cousins convene for big Italian dinners. So it was only natural to associate cooking with comfort.

"I watch the Food Network all day -- unless it's Sunday and there's a Steelers game," his mother said. "I love to cook, and John has always seen me in the kitchen."

Since then, he has stepped up to the dinner plate, tackling spring rolls and a few other culinary adventures.

'Try harder'

Chemotherapy takes its toll. It would have been easier administering the drugs had John opted for a surgically implanted port under the skin of his chest, but he worried that might affect his diving.

Each day, John has to swallow up to 13 pills, for everything from prevention of infection to Nexium for heartburn.

"There were times when I skipped practice, and that's something I would not have done before. I've dove when I was sick, so it really sucks to miss a practice," he said.

Diving turned out to be a great diversion on those days when his stomach hurt. "Me and my coach made up the saying, 'Diving is my medicine.' I would go to practice and I'd dive and take my mind off it and my stomach wouldn't hurt after that."

His attitude through everything that's happened since Thanksgiving, he said, is "try harder."

These last few weeks have been particularly good, he said. The feeling of being constantly exhausted has faded, the tumors are down, hope is up, his stomach is rarely upset.

Although he didn't reach his goal of earning a PIAA medal at the state meet two weeks ago, just getting to Bucknell University was a victory.

"The week of WPIALs was horrible. It was supposed to be an 'easy' week -- sometimes the chemo isn't as strong. But I got severely sick, I think I went to practice twice that week.

"I remember sitting at the kitchen table and telling my mom, 'I am not diving Saturday at WPIALs, I'm done.'?"

Then, as John has with so many other things involving his illness, "I cried about it, then I got over it."

At the WPIAL meet at Pine-Richland, he blew a dive outright, was shaky on three others, but was able to stay in the running for a top-five spot that would earn him a berth to the state meet.

On the last dive, he needed one point to secure his place.

"My last was my favorite dive, a front 11?2 with a full twist and I could probably do that dive in my sleep for 7, 71?2 [points]," he said.

"And that's what I did. I remember getting out of the water and seeing the crowd and I remember seeing my girlfriend just crying her eyes out. My mom was crying too, the whole section was crying," John said.

"I told my mom she's not allowed to cry through any of this because we're going to be strong together.

"But after that dive, I remember telling her, 'It's OK. You can cry now.'?"