I was about to blog about a new low cost investment opportunity in Oklahoma real estate, but something important happened. I went to Houston Sunday for my Monday PET scan at M.D. Anderson. Six weeks earlier I was there to get my CT scan to see how the radiation therapy worked. At that time they prepared me for surgery in six weeks, saying that one of the cancerous nodes in my neck did not look like it was shrinking. Is it possible to be angry at a lymph node? Yes! With cancer you feel like an alien life force has entered your body, kinda like the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers (watch the 1950's version, it is about the McCarthy era). You personalize that SOB node because he aint welcome. I met my main Doctor Monday afternoon and I kidded him about the scan saying I only wanted to hear good news, thinking bad was coming. What I got was a jaw dropping reply of "It's gone". Seven months, two surgeries, radiation, and fear of death later, I was given amnesty from death. If you want to see a grown man cry you should have been there. All that tension you hold just melts away. It is a total before and after moment delivered with two words, cancer free.
This started last year when I started noticing a permanent sore throat, more colds than I have ever had, and an ear ache. My girlfirend said that I was sounding nasally. I spent years of my youth taking voice and singing lessons, getting rid of my Okie accent and I am nasally? I almost broke up with her. Then something started to protrude from my neck and it wouldn't go away. Two biopsies later and nothing, so surgery was planned and after the swollen node was removed pathology said squamous cell carcinoma in the third stage. I passed out, woke up in a cold sweat, and cried for two weeks all the way to the plane to go to M.D. Anderson in Houston.
Aah, MD Anderson, the land of no propriety medicine, Doctors who practice and research for the science, and everything Obama has asked for in computerized medical records. It is all about healing, folowing protocol, and not talking about survival rates, at least for me. Some cancers are so rare that unfortunately no medicine can help. My cancer had specialist and sub-specialist and a proven protocol. If it is you with cancer, no amount of reassurance can keep the thought of death away, but you believe that if you have the strength to get through the medieval torture that is chemo and radiation, you can do it, and I did. Winning a 100 million dollars at the lottery can't compare to the right to breathe hopefully for a long time.
Why do I say that the fight is not over? It doesn't end with me. Head and neck cancer is growing at an alarming rate, symtoms are easily confused for normal ailments, and no definitive test exist like for breast, prostate, or colon. Also, many Doctor's are ignorant about what happens after surgery and give misinformation. They also lack compassion. My job now is to by availabler 24/7 for anyone who gets what I got. We took many notes about what happened and chronicled the progress. I can't relieve all the anxiety but it is now my job to help others. This is the way cancer survivors act almost all the time. let me tell you a story why. On Tusday morning my girlfirend had gone down to get Starbucks coffee for us and saw someone she knew who was with her husband from Oklahoma City getting treatment and told her my good news. As we were on the elevator to leave the hotel that is attached to the hospital, she again was on the elevator, and she congratulated me on leaving cancer free. On the elevator also was a young man and his mother, and the young man was getting chemo treatment. As they exited the mother looked at him and said "See". In that inadvertant moment I gave hope to a young man and his mother. I know that hopeless feeling that you can't stop. He looked at me and said congratulations, and I said good luck to him. It was a priceless moment and I knew what my life was going to mean after cancer.
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