Has it been a year? Time is becoming very difficult to quantify. Has it gone fast or does it seem like forever? It started in January last year. I had gotten back from Inman News in New York  totally pumped on blogging but very fatigued. Then the flu hit me or so I thought. I couldn't get out of bed for a week. Then something started to protrude out of my neck. I thought, this is weird, but maybe it is just an infections I wondered why I was getting so many colds and fever in the last three years, but i was 60 years old and isn;t this a part of the aging process? Then I spoke at an investor meeting in San Francisco in April and Charlene commented that I sounded very nasally. Having taken voice and speech lessons all my life not to sound like an Okie, I thought strange but we all have a dull nasal twang around here.

You know, guys can be pretty stupid. we want to prove that we are strong and that illness is nothing because were tough. Only wimps go to Doctors all the time, Besides I am riding bikes 15 miles a day. I'm strong! Then something inside me said it's been almost six months and this thing is still protruding, I guess i will go to the Doctor, and he will give me medicine and I will be just ducky. Instead he sent to an ENT Doc, and two biopsies later, no conclusion. This is getting stranger by the day. Then he said, we have to operate. So the operation was on Thursday, and the lump which turned out to be a lymph node bigger than a golf ball was sent into pathology. Then one year ago today at 3:00pm I was at the Doctors office figuring that nothing would be that big of a deal.

Then the Doctor looked at the chart and said this is the wrong chart. This is driving me crazy! He got the right chart and said, gee I thought it would be lymphoma. its squamous cell carcinoma. What's that Doctor? You have cancer. I didn't have time to call the Doctor an a--hole becasue I was passed out in a cold sweat, then I woke up crying saying to myself, this is it, I'm dead. The Doctor finally came back in and said I was in Stage 4 cancer and needed a PET scan immediately. Charlene immediately stepped up to him and 12 inches from his face said, don't worry about that, we will let MD Anderson in Houston do that. The doctor was pissed. How dare I not work with his downstream. Screw him, Charlene was taking me to MD Anderson.

Two weeks later, and two weeks of constant crying even on the way to the Oklahoma City airport, I landed in Houston. The next day i met my Doctors. In started with my main Doctor who had a sub-specialty of my cancer in the location it was in. He was great and had the can do attitude you need. Then it extended to the rest of the team. Let me tell you that in my experience the medical system is terribly broken and reform is essential. So don't even try to tell me that everything is okay, because it is not, I experienced that. But not at MD Anderson. Here the Doctors practice for the science, not for an extra 5000SF to their house. The next morning I had my PET scan at 7am but my main Doctor's appointment was not until 3. I had my first appointment with the radiologist at 11. i told them how nervouse I was because the PET would determine if I needed chemo in addition to surgery and radiation. he said don't worry I can pull it up now on our digital record keeping system. I said, won't my main Doc be mad? He said no, we are a team and we don't work that way. I had the comfort I needed, I think i can avoid chemo!

So I spent September through November in Houston with a short evacuation for Hurricane Ike, and in February of this year, I was told that all looked good. Now it is exactly one year later, and what was the worst day of my life, one year ago, has turned into a great day one year later. Yes I have side effects. I am losing teeth, my hearing in one ear is affected by the radiation, I have to do jaw exercises the rest of my life, and I use pharmaceutical fluoride every day but that is okay because the one side effect I wanted the most is still with me. It's called breathing. I don't want to tell you that I saw God, or Yahweh, or Allah, or Zoroaster for that matter, but I am so very different because unlike others who get cancer I am still breathing. So maybe i have found the meaning and essence of life. It is this for me, when you wake up in the morning, and you are breathing, please feel gratitude. Yes, for me it is that simple. 

I decided to use the above picture because I want you to know about what cancer patients go through. I will blog again tomorrow about what you can do about oral cancers which are typically found too late, and what you can do to help people get through their ordeal. I promise you i will give you a happier picture tomorrow. because unlike so many, I am here breathing, living, loving, and posting to you, my friends at Active Rain, and my friends everywhere. Thank you for your prayers and support. Tomorrow, how you get through a difficult ordeal.