The Illusion of Control

September 8, 2010 by Sparks 1 Comment

We pretend we have control over things all the time.  We do it so often that we don’t even think about it.   We don’t worry about getting in a fatal car accident because we can control the outcome through our habits and the protective gear we buy, right?

We don’t stress overmuch about choking on our food because, if we chew our food well enough the food will be much less likely to choke us.

We tend to mitigate our fears of getting mugged by parking in well-lit areas, not going alone into unknown areas, and knowing the “good” from the “bad” parts of town.

In short, we can control things.  We can control our fate.  Right?  We can create the eventualities we desire directly through our actions and behaviors.  We have control.

I used to think that way, people.  I used to firmly believe that my willpower alone could affect the outcome of events and happenings in my life.  You can imagine how big my shock must have been when I realized that I control, literally, nothing.

That’s right – and it’s the same with you.  You control NOTHING.

Think about the scenarios I listed above.  No matter what you do, you can’t control the actions of others on the road, so you are always at risk for a fatal accident.  No matter how much or how carefully you chew your food you can still choke to death.  No matter how safe you think you are there is always a chance you will get mugged, or worse.

What can we control then?  We can control our own actions and behaviors, right?

Not really.  To an extent, but even those actions and behaviors are a factor of biology, evolution, genetics, and cultural upbringing – all things over which you have no control.   It takes a Herculean effort to overcome the “baseline” behaviors and actions that are ingrained into you.

You can’t even control your own body.   I know.

Cancer is the biggest reality check in the world.  Nothing brings home the fact that you have control over NOTHING like realizing your own body has turned against you and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do about it.

Sure, there are things you can do to lessen your chance of getting cancer, but no one knows how much you decrease your chance.  You can eat lots of fruit.  You can not smoke.  You can make sure asbestos isn’t lining your walls.  You can avoid the sun.

All of those things might add up to keep you free from cancer.  But then again, they might not.

Once you actually have cancer, there’s nothing you can do to stop it.  Nothing.  Not a thing.  You can try positive visualization, prayer, changes in diet and exercise.  These things might make a difference.  But then again, they might not.

You cannot bargain with cancer.  All you can do is fight it as best you can.  Surgery, radiation, chemotherapy; these are the weapons at the forefront of the cancer battle nowadays.  They are by no means certain.  You can still lose the battle.

Anxiety About Tommorrow Can Ruin Today

Anxiety About tomorrow Can Ruin Today

And you can’t control it.

So how do you deal with the knowledge that you control nothing?

Do you surrender?  Give up?  Say to hell with it, roll over, and die?  No.  You don’t do that – but the knowledge that you can’t control things gives you a certain sense of freedom.  When you realize you can’t control something you can choose to STOP trying to control that thing.

I can’t control whether or not my cancer will recur.  I can do certain things to mitigate my risk factors, but ultimately I have no control.  Living my life in fear of a possible eventuality is not an acceptable option – so I let go of the fear, I stop trying to control things I can’t control, and I live my life as best as I can.

I don’t always succeed.  Letting go is hard.  Especially in March and September of every year for me.   I have my 6-month PET scan coming up next week and my nerves are starting to get frayed as I worry about the results of the scan.

I can’t control what the results will be.  In fact, if I have a recurrence of my cancer it’s better to know as soon as possible, but the fear of the possible bad news is making me edgy, distracted, and a bit surly.

Next week I get my scans.  Wish me luck.  I’m having a hard time letting go this week.  I know I can’t control the outcome one way or another, but I keep looking for SOMETHING I can control – just to make myself feel better.

The thing is; I control nothing.   I have no control.

Cancer, Cancer & Recovery, Life
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My Hero: My Mother

My Hero: My Mother

September 2, 2010 by Sparks 8 Comments

My mom is the strongest, nicest, most compassionate, most loving, and most tenacious woman I know.  She is, simply, amazing.

Right now, she’s lying unconscious in ICU at Florida Hospital, Celebration  Health, near Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.  She endured six long, extremely high risk, hours of surgery yesterday and, despite the odds, emerged on the other side.

A little back story is in order here.

In 2002 my Mom had a stress test to test her heart.  In the middle of the stress test she had a heart attack.  A minor one, but a heart attack to be sure.  The doctors immediately ordered a single bypass to rectify the problem.

The bypass went well and she was in recovery when the unimaginable happened.  Her body started shutting down and she was in imminent danger of losing her life.  The doctors were at a loss; something was putting pressure on her kidneys and putting her in extreme distress.  Unless immediate and urgent action was taken, she would surely die.

She was wheeled into surgery and, with no other options on hand, they performed an “open belly” surgery on her.  In essence they created a giant ventral hernia –  opening up her abdominal wall and removing her intestines from her body cavity in a last-ditch effort to save her life.

It worked.  The culprit ended up being a cecal volvulous, or a kink/obstruction in her intestinal tract.  With the volvulous repaired and her intestines outside of her body, her kidneys started behaving again and she started stabilizing.

Unfortunately it didn’t end there.  Within just a couple of hours of the open belly, her volvulous ruptured and the contents of her intestines spilled into her body cavity.  She was now in extreme danger of going into septic shock.

Frantically, the doctors cleaned her up, isolated her, and hoped for the best.  The best didn’t happen – she went septic, and got a hospital-borne infection as well.  It looked like we were going to lose Mom.  The entire family prepared for the worst, confused and frightened, wondering how a simple heart bypass surgery could escalate into such a catastrophic series of events.

Mom was put into a coma for three months as she battled the infection.  The entire family spent every free moment in ICU with her.  I would take my guitar up to her and play songs to her every evening.  My brother would sometimes come and sing along as I played.  My sister and I were the gatekeepers of every visitor and functionary in the ICU.  We knew who they were, what they were doing, and why they were doing anything to Mom.

More than once my sister and I saved Mom’s life by being prepared and preventing communication failures between the staff and doctors at the hospital. Had we not been there, decisions would have been made that would have led, at best, to a delay in her recovery and, at worst, to her death.

Slowly, so very slowly, Mom fought her way back to health.  Against all the odds, one day she woke up; lucid ready to start living again.  She has some amazing stories about her experiences in ICU when she was in and out of a coma; visions and dreams she had, fragments of conversations overheard, her thoughts and feelings on it.  I can’t begin to describe them here.

Once she was able, she moved out of ICU and into recovery where she quickly went into rehab and learned how to walk again, and do all the things that she could do before.

One problem, though; her intestines had never been put back into her body.  Her abdominal wall was wide open, her intestines spilled out, and covered with a skin graft taken from her legs.  She was told that she would never have them put back in again.

And so, she has lived for 8 years with her intestines sitting outside of her body, and a gaping wound in the fistula (hole in her intestines) that fills a bag every day.   Her skin graft has been slowly stretching over time, creating an ever bigger and more bulky pannus that hangs lower every day.  On top of that, it’s been slowly eroding as well.

We found out 2 weeks ago that in all likelihood her skin graft would rupture in the next six months and she would face another extreme life-threatening situation.  Surprise, though, her doctors thought they could put her back together again!

It was a risk, but a necessary one.  With her breathing issues, heart problems, and her general frailty, the surgery to put her intestines back in her body cavity is high-risk.  She might not make it out of surgery.

My mom never blinked.  The quality of her life has been deteriorating for years as her pannus grew.  She was in constant pain, although she never complained, and she was unable to do anything for the family at all.  Even walking from the bedroom to the kitchen had become a monumental task for her.  She wanted the surgery.

The two weeks leading up to the surgery were a whirlwind.  I hadn’t seen my mom so excited and happy in a long time.  She had a plan.  She had a doctor who she could trust.  She had a vision of the life she was taking back.

My Mom

My Beautiful Mother

And so, yesterday, I kissed her on the forehead as my brother and sister did the same.  We told her we loved her and that we were very proud of her.  With a smile, she was wheeled back into surgery.  I wasn’t nearly as calm as my exterior presented myself to be.  I didn’t want to appear weak or uncertain in front of Mom, but I was scared to death.

I thought that maybe I had said goodbye to my Mom for the last time.  A lump, cold and hard, was in my chest for seven hours as she was in surgery.

My wife, my brother, my sister, and my father waited as well.  We played cards.  We laughed.  We talked deep discussions.  We squabbled.  We did anything to distract ourselves from the reality – from the realization – that Mom was on the operating table engaged in another battle for her life.

She came through the surgery.  The doctor said she did well, but the way wasn’t clear yet.  “Tweaks” and “adjustments” would have to be made over the course of several days.  Her blood pressure is low, her blood sugar is high, and she’s breathing only with the aid of a ventilation tube right now.  The trauma of the surgery could still take an unexpected toll on her body.

Around 1:00am last night I got to see her.  She was in ICU and she was coming back to consciousness.  She was not supposed to do that.  Shes supposed to be sedated and unconscious the entire time she is on a ventilation tube.  My Mom heard my voice and reacted.

She knew I was there.  I asked her if she could hear me; she nodded her head.  With tears in my eyes, I told her that she had come through the surgery, that she was fine, and that her belly was put back together again.

She nodded and a tear rolled out of her closed eyes.  I held her hand and she squeezed my hand back.

Then the new sedatives kicked in and she slipped back into peaceful sleep.

I am sitting outside the ICU typing this blog.  I can’t go back in for another 30 minutes as they perform some rounds.

My Mom is my hero.  She is so strong, brave, and wonderful.  I can’t imagine where she finds the strength that she has.  For a second time, she is fighting for her life.  This time, though, it’s her choice and she is hoping for a better life a s result of this battle.

I love you Mom.  Get well soon.

Family, Health
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200th Post on BinaryBiker.com!

August 31, 2010 by Sparks 1 Comment

This blog post marks my 200th post on BinaryBiker.com.  You, my faithful readers, have been with me as I shamelessly share my thoughts, ideas, and feelings for the world to see.

You’ve been with me for years now, my loyal readers.  My blog has been my venue, my cathartic release, and my creative outlet for everything I think, feel, and experience in my life.

Thank you all for reading and being  a part of my life.  There’s definitely more to come!

Blogging, Life, Writing

Life Lessons Taught to Father By Son

August 26, 2010 by Sparks 4 Comments

I’d like to tell you that I’m a laid back kind of guy, but I would be lying.

I’m not laid back.  I am passionate, quick to judge at times, and have been battling anger issues for my entire life.   I am just not the paragon of cool and acceptance that most of you think I am.

That’s not to say I don’t try.  Especially since I met and fell in love with my beautiful wife.  She is everything I am not.  She is calm, cool, reserved, non-judgmental, and slow to anger.  I have been working, with mixed results, to emulate her example for almost three years now.

Two weeks ago, I was driving the entire family home one night.  I had three extra teens in my Durango because Matthew had his friends Phillip, Nick, and JB in the car with us.  My SUV may be destroying the planet, but I can fit a small army in it, by God!  We were less than a mile from home when I we came upon a van stopped in the middle of the road.

The van had no flashers on, and it was sitting perpendicular to the road, as if it were pulling out of a driveway and just stopped.  Cars were backed up; as I pulled to a stop I sighed loudly and the events unfolded like this:

“What’s this jacknuts up to?” I sighed wearily.

Carey grabbed my hand, “Just give him a minute honey.”

“Ok,” I groused impatiently, looking at the dashboard clock.

<a minute passes>

“Look,” I said, hitting the horn,  “that asswipe is making everyone go around him.”  I hit the horn again; not a quick polite honk but a 4-second insult to the idiot in the van.

He waved me to go around him but I refused.  I hit the horn yet again and made shooing gestures with my hand.

“Maybe he’s broken down, Dad,” said Matthew, my oldest son.  “I can help him.”

“He’s not broken down,” I said with finality.  “Look at how his van is in the road.  If he were broken down his hazard lights would be on and he would be facing the direction of traffic he was heading when he stalled.  He’s just being an asshole.”  I hit the horn again.

The man came around the side of his van.

“Dad, I think he’s broken down.”

“He’s not broken down, Matthew,” I said as I rolled my window down and stuck my head out of the window.

“MOVE YOUR DAMNED VAN!” I yelled out of the window at the man.

“I can’t,” he shouted back, “it’s overheated.”

I sat back, nonplussed for a second, realizing that my son was right, I was wrong, and if I had only taken a second to be civil instead of being an jerk I would have handled the situation so much better.  A wave of instant embarrassment washed over me.  So, I took a deep breath and decided to make up for my poor judgment.

I got out of the car and had the four seventeen-year-old boys come with me and we helped the man move his van out of the way of oncoming traffic.

The driver of the van was gracious and appreciative of our help.  Again, though, my son showed me how to be a gentleman.  He talked to the man as we pushed his van, and learned that he had just spent all of his savings on the van, was broke, and was just trying to limp the van along until payday when he could afford to repair the radiator leak.

My son asked him about the rock band stickers on the back of the van and learned that they were there when it had been purchased, but that didn’t stop Matthew from telling the driver of the van all about the bands themselves and how he was a musician himself.

I just pushed the van and felt more and more chagrined at my behavior with every passing second.  This man had spent his entire savings for a van, had no money, and had let my honking and anger bounce off of him as if it never even happened.  My son was chatting him up, laughing and smiling as he pushed the van down the road.

This man had suffered a far worse day than I.  He was alone, broke, and broken down.  He had every right to be angry with me for my actions towards him, yet he smiled, shook my hand, and thanked me for my help.  He laughed with my son, and insisted that he was going to be OK.  He just needed to let the van cool down and then it would start again.

My son; I am so proud of him.  His father is a jaded cynic who immediately assumed the worst and acted accordingly and he showed me how misplaced my cynicism can be.  He was a bigger man than me; a better man.

I want to be the man my son has grown into.  I have another role model to emulate in my life now.

Family, Life
,

The Binary Bikers Ride 1,726 Miles

August 18, 2010 by Sparks 4 Comments

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I promised myself that once I fully recovered from my cancer I would take a long motorcycle trip.  Big Bad John and I, the Binary  Bikers, rode from Orlando Florida to Louisville Kentucky and back.  A total of 1,726 miles – not including all the in-town riding we did while were in Louisville.

Carey and Michelle, our wives, followed behind a day later in a car and met us in Louisville and a fun time was had by all.  The pictures above are only my iPhone shots and not the shots from the real camera, but I hope you enjoy!

The ride was long, exceedingly HOT in Georgia, and tiring.  We were tired, sore, sunburned, and smelly at the end of every day – but it was worth it.  To have achieved a dream I had while I lay nearly dead from cancer – to fulfill that promise to myself – is a wonderful thing.  I feel so good about it.

You can see the rest of the pictures that Carey took HERE.

Motorcycle

If You Could Only See

August 18, 2010 by Sparks 0 Comments

If You Could Only See

If you could only see
inside of me

when I push you
away
use my anger to fuel
a stubborn desire;
when I sulk behind
steamy
eyes that dare
anyone to start something
with me – I’m begging
for your
laughter and your smile

If you could only see
behind this facade

when I don’t
clam up
and monopolize the conversion
when I pontificate
passionate
and outlandish statements
that no one cares to hear
I’m pleading
for your
kiss

If you could only see through
the broken window of my soul

when I succumb
to uncertainty and
doubt
when I over-analyze every
niggling detail and
lose focus on the
important things
when I forget how to
enjoy the moment
I am entreating you
to pull me
close

If you could only see
how much I love you

(c) 08/18/2010 Ron Sparks

Dedicated to my love, Carey Sparks.

Love, Poetry
The Binary Biker T-Shirt

The Binary Biker T-Shirt / Jacket

July 31, 2010 by Sparks 1 Comment

Click the image above to see the full-sized image.  The Binary Bikers now have an “official” logo and image for T-Shirts and jackets.  My buddy John and I will be wearing our t-shirts next week when we ride to Kentucky and back.

The 0’s and 1’s around the image of the motorcycle spell out “Binary Bikers” in binary code.

I love it!

Motorcycle

The Binary Biker is Legal

July 31, 2010 by Sparks 0 Comments

Binary's Motorcycle Classmates

Binary's Motorcycle Classmates (click for full image)

For twenty-two years the Binary Biker has been riding without a Florida motorcycle endorsement.

When I first started riding there was no requirement for the endorsement.  Then, once the state mandated it, I refused to get the endorsement because I viewed it as a waste of time, money, and saw it as just another way the state was sticking their hands into my pocket.

I missed out on all the test rides at Daytona Bike Week and Biketoberfest.  I rode fearfully any time a police cruiser was near.  I was illegal, but at least I was sticking it to the Man.

Last year, however, it became a third degree felony to ride without an endorsement.  Ridiculous, I know.  But the law’s the law.  In just a few days I am taking a 1,600 bike trip with my buddy John and I realized I should probably have my endorsement.

With a heavy heart, I succumbed to the pressure of signed up with the Florida Safety Council to get my endorsement.  The class was easy; it’s geared towards beginner riders.  I did, however, learn a couple of things that even after 22 years of riding I was unaware of.  Specifically, I have never really had to perform really low-speed turns in  a  figure eight.  It was a great exercise for learning control of your bike and I actually had a hard time with it the first few times I tried it.  So the class was not a waste and, after taking it, I can definitely see why a beginner would want to take this class.  I grudgingly admit that the course is a good idea.

I also met some interesting people who I would not have had the opportunity to meet otherwise.  The entire class was filled with good people and they made the class fun, even through we were in the scorching heat, in long sleeves, riding all day Saturday and Sunday.

I’d like to shout out and say hello to my fellow classmates in the picture above.

Top Row, left to right:  (forget his name, he was quiet), Kendra, Anna, Matt, Eric

Bottom row left to right:  Danielle, Nate.

Thanks for making the class fun guys.  Let me know if you ever want to ride; keep the rubber side down.

Motorcycle

It Galls Me To Tell You This

June 25, 2010 by Sparks 8 Comments

My gall bladder is functioning at only 3%.

This is apparently not uncommon for someone who went through chemotherapy and lost so much weight so quickly.  The extreme punishment my body endured through cancer treatments was not without consequence.  My gall bladder was damaged and has since deteriorated.

Lovely.

Let me start from the beginning.  I like spicy food.  A lot.  To that end, we have a tradition at the office to go to The Thai Place at least once a week for lunch.  I typically order the same thing.  I smile at the waitress, weekly, and challenge them by saying:

“I’d like the Panang Curry Chicken, Thai Hot, with extra Thai hot, with more Thai hot, and a little Thai hot on the side.”

They smile back, ask me if I am sure I want it that hot, and shake their heads when I insist that they make it as hot as they want.  And I love every sweat-inducing bite.  Now they see me coming and laugh and greet me like an old friend, because I have been tempered by the fire, literally.

About two months ago, a sadistic chef really put me to the test.  I was literally sweating as I finished the last bite of my chicken curry.  But I was smiling.  Until the next day.

The next day I started having pains in my right side – lower right side.  They were dull, almost gaseous, pains.  But they never went away.  Carey and  I went to St. Augustine that weekend and the pains became pretty severe.  They were alternating sharp and dull, but always on my right side.

A week later and suddenly I was bloated all the time.  My waist went up in size two inches almost overnight.  The pains of the bloating were severe, but they were always non-specific.  In fact, the pains were so low on my right side that I thought it might be my appendix or, worse, that I had a cancer growing in the lymph nodes on my side.

So I went to my primary care physician and, because of the cancer concern, was immediately sent for a CT scan.

Fortunately there was no visible cancer on the CT scan.  If you remember from my previous cancer blogs, the CT scan on my neck clearly showed  the cancerous mass when I was initially diagnosed.  So I was immediately relieved, but I was still concerned.

I was going on 3 weeks at this point and the pain was still there, every day, all day long.  It was never really bad pain, it ranged between 4-6 on a 1-10 scale, but it was persistent and after weeks of it I was starting to wear thin around the edges.  I was grumpy, unable to concentrate, and everything in my life was suffering.

So I was referred to a gastrointestinal doctor.  I was examined, but my symptoms were so non-specific that there was no immediate culprit.  I learned that referred pain is a very common occurrence in abdominal issues.  The actual cause of pain can be in one place but the pain you feel is in another.  That’s because the nerves for your entire abdominal area, including your genitals, all meet in a big “bundle” near your solar plexus.

Colonoscopy

Yes, I had a colonoscopy

So the gastro doctor sent me for a small bowel series of X Rays, a colonoscopy,  and an endoscopy.

Lovely. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.  Suffice it to say, those tests came out just fine. Now we’re into almost 2 months and the pain is still there, in spades.  Every day I dread getting out of bed because I know I’ll be shuffling around, half-bent at the waist, because of the low-grade pain that just won’t go away.

I did notice that my symptoms decreased significantly if I changed my diet.  I stopped eating red meat, fried foods, and fatty foods.  I live on lean fish, salads, and sushi now.  Once I switched to this diet, I noticed a significant reduction in my symptoms.

Then, last week, I was sent for a HIDA Scan.  Radioactive liquid is inserted via IV into your bloodstream where it quickly goes to the liver.  The scan takes up to 2 hours as they watch the liver fill with the liquid and then slowly fills the gall bladder.  Once the gall bladder is full, they inject you with a drug meant to make your gall bladder spasm, the same chemical your pancreas excretes after a meal.  This is supposed to see how well your gall bladder functions.

There are two things that can “go wrong” in this scan:

  1. The gall bladder never fills up and instead the liquid goes right into the intestines.  This can sometimes mean that the gall bladder isn’t working at all.
  2. The second phase, where they make the gall bladder contract, doesn’t work and the liquid stays in the gall bladder.

In my case, the gall bladder QUICKLY filled up.  An hour later, when the drug was administered to make it contract, I got so sick I nearly threw up on the floor.  I bloated and had extreme pain in my abdominal cavity.

But it appeared that some of the liquid was ejected into my intestines.  Just not enough.  The tech doing the scan thought that my gall bladder was working and that the camera angle made it seem like there was more liquid in my gall bladder than there really was.  He had no explanation for my extreme response to the drug.  I just had to wait for the computerized results, that showed how much actually was ejected into my intestines, was analyzed to find out for sure.

Gall Bladder Removal

Gall Bladder Removal

Truthfully, I was depressed.  I believed the tech – my gall bladder was fine and something else was the problem.  I just wanted it to be over.  I was starting to think that maybe there was a cancer raging through my body.  It’s easy to be a bit of a hypochondriac after going through cancer as I have.

So this week I am in DC, still in pain but managing it because of my diet.  I got a call from my doctor – the results of my HIDA scan were in.  I was surprised to learn that my gall bladder is essentially non-functional.

So on Monday morning I go in for an ultrasound of the gall bladder and then my doctor and I will decide what to do.  It may have to be removed completely.  Over 500,000 Americans get gall bladder surgery every year.  It is easily the most common surgery performed.

It is low risk and is a laparoscopic procedure in most cases, but there is no guarantee that it will “cure” me.  40% of patients who have their gall bladder removed still have symptoms years later.

The good news is that it is not cancer.  But I still have a bit of  rough road ahead of me as I deal with this.

Thanks everyone, who have known about this struggle I have been dealing with and who have been sympathetic and empathetic.  Carey, of course, has been an angel through it all.  I really, really owe her a debt that I can only repay by loving her every day for the rest of our lives.  She never leaves my side and accepts that the effects of my cancer will be felt for years to come.  She just stays by my side, loving me, no matter what.

It’s galling for me (pun intended) to still have NEW side effects of my cancer popping up, but that’s the situation.  It also galls me to realize that my spicy Thai days are probably over.

Cancer, Cancer & Recovery, Health
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Cancer, Scars, and Airport Shuttles

June 21, 2010 by Sparks 0 Comments

Airport ShuttleI flew to Washington, DC today.  Again.  It’s what I do.  Working for Hooah, I get the opportunity to fly up here a couple of times each month.  I work with my clients, my team, and enjoy a town I love dearly.  This week, I am lucky enough that my lovely wife, Carey, is able to join me.

We barely made the shuttle from the terminal to the rental car counter at DCA.  The shuttle was full, but Carey managed to find a seat.  I was stuck standing at the front of the bus, holding the overhead rail and standing directly in front of a seated man in his 40s.

As I stood there, waiting for the bus to depart, I felt a tap on my hand.  The man seated next to me was trying to get my attention.  I couldn’t really hear what he was saying because of the background noise (side effect of chemotherapy, I have lost some of my hearing).  He pointed at his neck and was looking at me.  I assumed I had food, or a booger, on my neck so I smiled wanly and wiped my neck self-consciously.

The stranger shook his head and spoke louder, “How did you get that scar?”

For a second, I was nonplussed.  He was the first person to ask me about my scar in a long time.  It has mostly faded from the ugly red eyesore it used to be, but it is still plainly visible.  Most people politely ignore it and I get a small measure of satisfaction for looking “tough.”  Anyway, I was so unprepared for the question that I started to answer “squamous cell carcinoma,” the cancer I have, when I realized that most people have no idea what that means.  I managed to get “squamous” out of my mouth before I caught myself and just simply said “cancer.”

It turns out that cancer was very much on this man’s mind.  He had found a lump while shaving in his neck very similar to “Lenny the Lymph Node” that was my first sign of cancer.  He was very calm, but I saw the same look in his eyes that I had when I first realized I had a lump; I hoped it wasn’t cancer, but I was afraid I already knew that it was.

This man, this stranger, may be about to start on the same journey I went through.  The same uncertainty, the same fear.  I am not even remotely unique in my journey, thousands of people have tread this path before me, but when I was first diagnosed I felt alone and despondent.  I had no one to turn to; I didn’t want to turn to strangers with senseless platitudes.  I didn’t want family to struggle with the right things to say to me.  Even at my oncologists’ office I never saw another patient my age or with my particular cancer.  I never saw a man with a scar on his neck like mine; I never had the opportunity to ask or find someone who had gone through what I was about to go through.

I really, really hope that it’s just a cyst or some other benign mass in his neck, but you never can tell until you get it biopsied or scanned.  I spent a minute or two describing my plight to this stranger, making sure he saw how positive my outcome has been thus far, and reminding him that if it was cancer, it’s much better to catch it early than later and that today’s doctors and technologies can do many many things to battle this fearsome disease.

I gave him my blog URL.  I encouraged him to read my blog and reach out to me if he wanted to talk. And then, the shuttle ride was over and we had to go our separate ways.  3 minutes, in a shuttle, and I met a man who was most likely scared for his life, confused and uncertain and needing a friend – and all I had were three minutes to talk to him.

What would you have said if you had only those three minutes?  I hope I said the right things.  I gave him my blog URL in the hopes that we can strike up a longer,  more productive, dialogue later if he needs it.

This blog is for you, sir.  If you do stumble on my blog, whether or not you end up having cancer, know that you’re not alone.  Please take the time to read my Cancer Blog and, if you want to chat, just leave a comment on any post and I will respond.

Good luck to you.

Cancer, Cancer & Recovery
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