'He Lived Large': Libertyville Man Leaves Legacy After 16 Year Fight

LIBERTYVILLE, IL — For the better part of 16 years, Mary Prochotsky cringed every time her phone would ring or see her son’s name flash across her caller ID, fearing the news she prayed would never arrive.

For those same 16 years, Mary and her husband Dave Prochotsky, watched — sometimes almost helplessly — as their son Josh lived with an aggressive brain tumor that was discovered when he was 16 and a sophomore at Libertyville High School. The entire time, Josh Prochotsky found his own sense of normalcy the best he could, never wanting anyone’s pity or allowing the tumor to keep him from living life to its fullest.

But last month, on his 32nd birthday on Nov. 26, Josh Prochotsky died, leaving behind his wife and the couple’s 2 ½-year-old daughter. To the very end, Josh had done his best to live life the only way he knew. The final two years had been the toughest, his mother told Patch on Monday. But even at the end, Josh insisted he never become a burden while squeezing as much out of life as he possibly could.

“He lived large in his 32 years — he really did,” Mary Prochotsky told Patch. “That’s what I try to keep close at hand.”

“He lived large through all of it. It seemed like it didn’t hurt him and it probably hurt us more, but he really lived large through all of it.”

In her grief, Mary Prochotsky struggles to put her son’s courageous fight into words. She still hasn’t processed the reality she worked to deal with daily for the 16 years her son battled. While Josh hid his condition the best he could, Mary Prochotsky said she lived with an intense worry during an emotional roller coaster ride that included plenty of twists turns, and unexpected drops.

To walk the line between hope and reality, she said, it was almost impossible to balance between the two for such a long period. She still isn’t convinced that she and her husband did a very good job of walking the road that included the initial diagnosis and then the journey that saw Josh go off to college —first at the University of Mississippi and then at Mississippi College, where he earned his degree in nursing — and then to his work life as a nurse at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

While Josh lived daily with the reality of the unexpected, of when his next seizure could arrive or when he’d again need to undergo his next brain surgery, his parents lived out a mission of always wanting to do the best thing they could for Josh, Mary said.

“Things would get difficult,” she said on Monday, “but we just said we were going to press on and do the next best thing.”

Dave Prochotsky agreed: "We had a lot of ups and downs (over the 16 years), but (Josh) was like the Energizer Bunny."

Josh played football and baseball during his freshman year at Libertyville High School in 2007 before everything changed when he was a sophomore. In a college application essay, Josh wrote that he had just made the sophomore baseball team when he began experiencing a twitch in his left foot.

He underwent tests, all of which came back negative. When a doctor suggested he undergo an MRI, not expecting to find anything, Josh wrote that the worst thing that might happen is that he might be diagnosed with a mild form of cerebral palsy. A day later, he arrived home from school to the news that doctors had detected a mass on his brain that was likely a tumor.

Josh wrote in the essay that he did his best to take the news in stride. He didn’t cry.

“I just wanted to overcome a battle,” Josh wrote in the essay.

Rather than play baseball that season, Josh traveled to Jacksonville, Fla., for radiation treatments and chemotherapy as his fight began. He was cared for at the Ronald McDonald House, where his treatments continued and where he and his family began what would be a 16-year journey of unknowns.

Mary said her son was initially given three to five years to live, but that in true Josh fashion, her son wanted to get the most out of living as he possibly could. Despite seeing his football-playing career end after his biopsy, Josh remained a part of the team, attending every practice and game like nothing had changed. He continued to play baseball during his junior and senior years at Libertyville, trying to do as much as he possibly could without knowing when the end would come.

The Wildcats’ varsity team played one game a year at Miller Park in Milwaukee, where Josh once doubled as a junior despite not being scheduled to play in the game. But when the senior catcher was forced out of the lineup, Josh stepped in and doubled inside the Milwaukee Brewers’ home ballpark, providing a memory that Josh never forgot and that in his college essay he called the "best moment of my life."

When Josh left for college, his mom says she packed Ziplock bags full of reminders of when he needed to take medication that would prevent seizures from taking place on a regular basis. Like any other mom worried about her son, Mary says she became paranoid about the trouble life in a men’s college dorm might bring.

That increased her anxiety about the times when her phone would ring, fearing something was wrong. Mary says Josh managed to find some trouble, which was notated on bills as "library fines that weren’t really library fines."

“I just had to let him live,” Mary said.

Despite moments of displaying what his mother calls a wild side, Josh's life-changing condition had changed him.

"Through my journey, I have dealt with a lot and have had to grow up fast," Josh wrote in his college application essay that was provided to Patch by his mother. "I would never take anything back though because that made me the person I am today. I think it prepared me to be a man and take the next step. in my life, which is college.

"Through dealing with surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and seizures, I believe this cancer journey has made me strong-willed I am today. I will not let anything bring me down and plan to give back to children who go through this terrible disease."

After graduating from Mississippi College with his nursing degree, Josh continued to fight, again, never wanting to live out a public battle. He chose a career that allowed him to reach out and get to know people who needed help and help them through whatever they might be going through at the time.

His initial job put him on the hospital's neurological floor, which was difficult for Josh, Mary said, because patients weren’t as engaged as he wanted. A switch to the rehabilitation sector of the hospital allowed Josh to get to know people on a personal level.

But when Josh experienced a seizure at work, he was forced to take a desk nursing job, taking him away from people again before his condition — and another brain surgery — forced him to leave the workforce altogether.

The entire time, though, Josh pressed through the ups and the downs, never complained, and gave the impression, his mother said, that he would live on forever, much to the amazement of those who knew and loved him best.

Josh only remained in the hospital for two days after his final brain surgery in 2021, the same year that he and his wife Paige — whom he had met at a Cubs game in 2016 — welcomed their daughter, Mila.

“He just handled everything with such grace and accomplishment before he even felt the wrath of it,” Mary Prochotsky said. “He just pressed on.”

After meeting at Wrigley Field, Josh and Paige married in 2019. His mother said that his wedding changed everything for Josh, a typical guy who Mary says cared about guy things until meeting the girl of his dreams. When Mila came along, Josh found himself with even more purpose, which grew stronger by the day and overtook his love of the Bears, who according to his obituary, he loved until the very end and always expected more from.

But after having a seizure while at work one day, Josh was forced to remain at home. He told his mother that it wasn’t supposed to be this way — that Paige was the one who should have been able to remain home with the couple’s daughter. But the time at home provided Josh with day-to-day interaction with his little girl — a gift that now seems so much bigger than it once did.

“There were some things that he got out of life at the end that were amazing times,” Mary said, adding. “He left us the legacy of Mila – we’ve got Mila and we’ve got the memories, and we try to hone in on those things because that really is what we have.”

Now, as Christmas approaches and with the reality of Josh’s passing still fresh, Josh’s family are working to provide assistance to his wife and daughter. David Kaplan, an ESPN 1000 radio personality and former NBC Chicago TV host, has started a GoFundMe to help Paige and Mila. Kaplan's daughter-in-law, Jen, is Josh's sister.

As of Tuesday, the effort has raised nearly $14,000 toward a $100,000 goal that will go to provide meaningful help to Josh’s family. Mary says as Mila gets older, she will constantly tell her granddaughter how much she was loved and cared for by her father. Before his death, Josh asked his parents that they get a necklace with a diamond for Mila that reads, “DA” – Mila’s name for Josh.

“He always told me that his life would be complete when the Bears won the Super Bowl,” Mary told Patch. “We knew that wasn’t going to happen and so his life was complete when he had Mila and the two women in his life made him — they just completed his life.”

For now, many of the details of Josh’s last weeks are too fresh for his mother to discuss. Yet, as much as he struggled in his final two years, unable to hide the effects of the brain tumor he lived with for so long, Mary will look back fondly on the days her son was able to share with his family and perhaps more importantly, on the two women that meant so much.

Over his fight, Josh became a hero and an inspiration to so many people, his mother says. She watched as her son eventually lost the ability to use his left arm and needed to use his teeth to pry open the tops of water bottles. He was frustrated by the fact that he couldn’t do things for himself and struggled with remembering little things like turning off the water after he watered the lawn. He didn’t want Paige to have to worry about his every move as he began to show signs that perhaps his fight was drawing to a close.

But now, nearly a month after his death, it’s the little things his mom will choose to remember. She recalls the sadness on Josh’s face as they begin to have conversations about the end, which reverts her mind to all of the good things — like Josh’s kindness and love for others and his desire to care for others the best he could.

“Now, I wish had all of those moments back,” Mary Prochotsky told Patch on Monday “Now, it’s just such severe pain from losing him – it’s hard to wrap your head around."

She added: “(The good times) are the kind of things we need to remind ourselves of because we were fortunate because we got 16 years and most people with aggressive brain tumors don’t live that long.”