Happy Anniversary...

 

[DISCLAIMER: I am a cancer patient. While I may not have any active cancer/cancers in my body at present, I'm very cognizant that it could return. I am in no way attempting to say that all cancer experiences are like my own. Each person's cancer journey is like a fingerprint given that each is different. While they may have some commonalities, each persons fight with this affliction differers just as each person differs. Some cancers are more aggressive than others, and not all of us who battle this son of a bitch will prevail. This is a long, and ugly road and I pray for my brothers and sisters who trod this road with me. I remember those who trod it before me like my late grandmother, three of my uncles and five of my aunts.  My heart especially goes out to all the children who suffer with it who were diagnosed before they began to live and all who will walk on this road in the future. My purpose in writing this is to give insight to my battle with something which I'll loathe until the day I draw my last breath and hopefully which won't be the cause of my demise. While I can't and won't attempt to speak for all cancer patients I will say to those NOT on this road who would tell those of us on it how to walk, shut the hell up.] 

Three years ago in March I was wide sitting on a black vinyl chair in a small exam room with walls the color of which I still can't determine. Maybe they're a shade of light green, or perhaps they're grey. I've been to those rooms in the Houston Veterans hospital urology department several times and for the life of me the color of those stupid walls eludes me. Also, whenever I've been there I've been slightly more preoccupied with why I was there. I was staring at a fading chart on the wall of the male urinary & reproductive system and trying to be as positive as I could as I ignored a large silicone model of a penis which sat on a shelf above me.

                 I was a bundle of nerves but was told by the handful of people privy to my being there that despite certain risk factors more than likely the result of my biopsy would be negative. I probably just had something called benign prostate hyperplasia or simply put an enlarged prostate. I'd been wide awake for my prostate biopsy a few weeks earlier. Despite the shots and numbing agents employed it still hurt like hell. The procedure involves inserting a probe into a man's rectum then cutting tiny pieces of his prostate to examine them for cancer cells. Given the level of discomfort a local anesthesia is given but I still felt every cut.  When you reach a certain age, every doctor you see will be younger than yourself. As a man in his 50s I've reached that age. A fresh faced young doctor comes in with a chart and his face is without expression. Seeing young men and women without expression could mean one of many things, exhaustion, suppressed anger, or an unpleasant task ahead of them. He closed the door behind him and sat at the desk on which my elbow rested and said the five words which utterly changed my life. "I'm sorry. You have cancer."

              I've been asked many times since that day what I was thinking when I heard him say it. Did I go through the five stages of grief in an instant? Did I experience denial, depression anger, bargaining and acceptance before I drew my next breath? The best way to describe it would be sitting in the sun on a warm day then suddenly being doused with gallons of arctic water in an instant.  I sat there in disbelief feeling the blood drain from my face. "Are you sure?" I asked in a pleading voice. He nodded his expression still somber. "But" he said "the good news is it's not a fast growing cancer, and the survival rate for it is much higher than it was just a few years ago. It's a very treatable cancer."  Each time he uttered the word it felt as if he were stabbing me. I was in shock.

         "So." he said his demeanor seemingly changing instantaneously. "Let's schedule when we can take out that prostate." He was smiling.  This kid just told me I had cancer cells growing in my body less than a minute earlier and now he was SMILING. Urologists are a bit different from other specialists. Some see themselves as oncologists, many see themselves as surgeons. The truth lies in between, they are however not known for their bedside manner. Surgeons want to cut people open and the men and women whose domains are the kidneys, bladder and reproductive organs do not pass up opportunities to cut people open. I wish the medical school this young man had attended given acting classes so that he would have been able to better conceal his desire to have me on a gurney as he tried to see how quickly he could remove a part of my body. "Is there NO other option?" I asked still in shock. He seemed a little crestfallen that I wasn't ready to go onto an operating table.  "There are" he said trying to hide the disappointment in his voice, "but the prostatectomy is the most effective. You would remove all of the cancer at once. There is also radiation, but I wouldn't recommend radiation for a man your age." I would later research and learn that younger men who get radiation as a prostate treatment are more likely to have issues with incontinence and their colons years later.  "The thing is" he said "right now you have options for your treatment, but before we discuss those we need to schedule an MRI so we can see exactly where your cancer is so we can come up with a treatment strategy. How about next month?" I nodded in silence avoiding his gaze. "Okay" he said "Make an appointment with the front desk on the way out." 

      "Can...I have a moment? I asked. He nodded and replied "sure, just come out when you're ready." I didn't notice his leaving but heard the door closing behind him. In an instant I was quietly sobbing.  I could feel the tears falling from my cheeks as my vision became blurred.  I've no idea how long I sat alone in that room feeling as if a death sentence had just been imposed on me despite the young doctors assurances, but eventually I composed myself and walked out of that room feeling numb. The clerks made an appointment for me to be stuck inside a large magnet and I like an automaton I took the elevator to the first floor and found my way across a parking lot to the jeep in which my lady sat waiting.

          She could see I'd been crying. "Oh God." she exclaimed before I could utter a word. She wrapped her arms around me and my face fell unto her shoulder as I silently wept. "I had skin cancer. You can beat and WILL beat this." she assured me with a confidence in her voice that gave me comfort. I sat up as the tears continue to well up in my eyes, Her placid blue eyes gave me a strange peace at that moment. She grabbed my hand and said "Okay, let's get out of here." We drove off as I asked what every cancer patient asks throughout the journey at some point "why me?"  I had no idea what lay ahead. I won't lie and pretend that I wasn't afraid. I was, but my fear wasn't of my own demise. Years of reading samurai treatises have made me accept my mortality years earlier, but I was afraid of the fact that I was about to face the unknown. I'd just learned that I was about to start fighting for my life against an enemy which had killed men and women far stronger than I have ever been or would ever be, and it scared the hell out of me.