The last time I wrote anything here was back in 2002 when I was a mere slip of a lad of 66. I'm now just past my 71st birthday and the past three years have been...different.
In August of '05 I got a call from the VA Medical Center one evening. They said they'd been following me for a condition known as Barrett's Esophagus. That's a dysplasia of the esophagus brought on by years and years of heartburn. They also said that they found some irregularities in my last endoscopy (they put a tube with a camera down your throat and take a look and a biopsy) and they wanted me to come in.
"When do you want me there?"
"Can you be here tomorrow?"
"WHAT?! Do I have cancer?"
"We don't know but we're treating the situation as if you do."
"Is 8 o'clock too early? I can be there at seven if you prefer."
"No, eight will be fine."
My wife and I looked at each other and couldn't say a word. Finally, I asked her what was going on. She said she was at a loss for words and couldn't even guess. I immediately called my older sister. She and I are all that's left of the core family. Our father died in 1957 and our mother died in 1996. We had a brother but he died in 1986 of lymphoma. Was I concerned? Naaah. I was scared to death.
The next morning we all met at the VA in Boston and we went up to see the doctor. He told us that the irregularity could be cancer--they weren't sure. They wanted to do another endoscopy, take a biopsy and send the sample down to Bethesda, MD for full analysis. OK. You say, I do.
Two weeks later they called to tell me I definitely had cancer. It was in the very beginning stages and very slow moving. They said this was good because they wanted to do extensive testing on me.
I'll say this for the VA: I got the best care I could have possibly gotten. They spared no expense and no effort in diagnosing me. In fact, it got to the point where they did a CAT scan to determine the way the surgery on my esophagus was going to go.
While in the surgeon's office discussing the upcoming surgery and the CAT scan, another surgeon came in and said, "I have some news for you that you're not gong to like."
"What?"
"You also have lymphoma."
"I HAVE WHAT?!"
"Lymphoma."
"Charming, just friggin' charming."
Well, the plan was to operate on my lymph glands under my left arm, remove them and put me on four rounds of chemotherapy as a precaution. They felt that the lymphoma had been discovered so early that they didn't think it had spread.
I had the surgery the following week and at the end of September began four rounds of chemo--one a month. I lost my hair. In fact, I lost most of the hair on my body. It all came back. The hair on my head came back wavy. They called it a chemo-perm. It finally grew out and went back to the way it had always been.
On 15 February I went in for the surgery and woke up 55 days later. It seems that right after the surgery I came down with MRSA (pronounced mer-sa. It means Methycillin Resistant Stapholococcus Aureus) which is a very nasty bacterial infection that can and often does kill people.
The only thing I remember from that entire time was a dream in which I saw a big, black triangle with a light in the center. It was coming straight at me. At the last possible second it turned aside, passed me on my left and kept going. Later, when I awoke and thought about it, I realized that was Death coming for me and it wasn't my time yet. You can believe this or not--I really don't care. It happened to me and deep down where I live, I know it's true.
I won't go into the details of my rehab and the months of recovery. It's enough to say that I made it. However, I lost 90 pounds during that time because my esophagus had been removed and my stomach attached to what had been the upper end of my esophagus. They did that after cutting off the rounded part of the stomach that bells out and turning it into a tube. Having started out being 5'8" and weighing 295 pounds, I really had no problem with the weight loss. In fact, I've become a clothes horse and I love it.
It's now three years later and I feel I'm completely recovered. In fact, I now work at the Hematology/Oncology Department at the Boston VA Medical Center. After all, who's better qualified to deal with cancer patients than a survivor?
I must say again that the treatment I got here was absolutely superb. The doctors and nurses couldn't have been any more solicitous or attentive. They treated me as if I belonged to the family.
My entire attitude toward everything has changed according to my wife. She says I'm a quieter, gentler, kinder and more thoughtful person than before the surgery. I don't see any difference in anything at all. I just go on about my daily business. Of course, I don't get as angry as I used to, nor do I get as worried about anything except very important things such as, what's for dinner tonight or what TV shows will we watch tonight. And anytime my wife expresses a wish for anything, my immediate response is, "Whatever you want, whenever you want it."
It's GOOD to be alive.
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