Walking With a Lymph

Since being diagnosed with Lymphoma, there have been two moments of attitudinal shift that I continue to refer back to. They were moments of a switch being flipped - devoid of rumination, processing, mulling or contemplation. Adjustment, quick and clean; no transition necessary. The first came when I was talking to my friend Chris. In my 53 years on earth Chris is the most positive person I have ever encountered, literally. (And I mean “literally” in the literal sense.) He exudes it, and it is sincere. He laughs at my snark without judgement, responds with love, and I love him for that. I was telling Chris the tale of how a mysterious kidney stone led to the discovery of my Cancer, and his immediate response was, “Thank G-d for that kidney stone!” Consider the notion of thanking the almighty, whatever version thereof you do or do not embrace, for the affliction of a kidney stone. My natural reaction was, “Oh my G-d, I’ve got a fucking kidney stone,” but Chris was right. I owe that kidn

“I love you, but you’re going to have to shave that beard.”  I was lying in bed when these words were spoken to me. Though it was not my own bed, I was naked from the waist down save for two pairs of socks, and had only met the man speaking to me the day prior. My wife was there, too, but she was just watching. The sudden announcement was surprising because I was already prepped, and the CNA was ready to administer the sleepy-go-bye-bye meds. Truth be told, I was in surgery about two weeks earlier than anticipated because my surgeon, the man I had met one day earlier, had a cancellation. So, even though my beard was hard to miss, it had escaped any sort of pre-op conversations that would have otherwise been routine. They brought me hospital clippers, and I raced from the pre-op room to the bathroom with my wife valiantly trying to hold my hospital gown closed from behind, ass cheeks flapping in the breeze nonetheless. A nurse lined the sink with a towel, and I proceeded to shave my bea

Today marks one week since my first Chemo treatment. Today is also the first day I’ve gone back to bed after everyone else left the house. I woke up at the normal time, roused the kids, made coffee, had a bagel. After Shawnna, et al. left for school I fed the dogs, and sat sipping a second cup while continuing to navigate the flowing torrent of Sondheim remembrances . Then, in an instant, I just felt like crap – queasy and completely sapped of energy. So, I went back to bed. I have felt mildly queasy all week, but this was more pronounced. So much so, that I no longer wished to remain upright, and upright I did not remain. While we tend to think of side-effects as manifesting physically, there are some that take up psychological space, as well. I'm not talking about the mental and emotional toll Cancer can take on a person and his family, rather the physical symptoms that edge their way into the psyche thereby becoming meta physical. For me, such symptoms are the ones relating to f

I believe in irreverence. I find the notion that certain things are off-limits to joke about distasteful and potentially harmful. I believe that when Mel Brooks makes fun of Adolf Hitler, it robs Hitler’s memory and history of its power. When I make jokes about having Cancer, it is with these things in mind. I think there is strength in owning my reality, and declaring that I have Cancer. My wife would disagree with most of what I’ve just written. "Mel Brooks - To be or not to be" by Jacob Whittaker is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Rather than owning my reality as a means to marshaling power over it, Shawnna believes that declarative ownership of my disease has manifesting power. I think she would say that my notion of ‘owning through declaration’ is more akin to ‘creating through declaration.’ Every stage along this Chemo journey brings a new step for which I am unprepared, and to which there will be unknown reactions. Shawnna is right, in that I am spending a great deal

I have always said that once I had kids, I became a better actor because my emotions lived so much closer to the surface. If that's true, then this shit should make me fucking Olivier. I've had numerous moments of emotional fragility over the past couple of months. It’s usually been when I’ve had more questions than answers, and when I’m home alone with nothing to occupy my mind. (Showers are particularly bad.) I do best with information, but I’m being very particular as to where I get it. I’ve been avoiding Dr. Google like, well, Cancer. I’ve also avoided legitimate sites like the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society , or National Cancer Institute . Nor do I pour over the voluminous handouts the various healthcare professionals give me. I figure I’ll only understand about 10% of what I read, and the other 90% will send me in to a tailspin. They enumerate all possibilities from the best-case scenarios to the worst, and one’s mind never fixates on the best, “Clearly, based on what I re

Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma (20%) with Follicular Lymphoma (80%), WHO Grade 3A. That’s what I got, and for what I got they give you Chemo. The specific treatment protocol is called R-CHOP, which is simply an acronym for the Chemo Cocktail I’ll be receiving. From what I understand, there isn’t a lot of room for Physician deliberation and interpretation – with Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma (DLBCL), you get R-CHOP. Period. My cousin, who’s both a retired Oncologist and a Lymphoma survivor, called it “cookbook medicine.” DLBCL is aggressive, but potentially curable. Follicular is not curable, but is slow-growing and treatable. "Follicular" also makes me think of this: Starting on November 23, I'll be getting Chemo once every three weeks for a total of six cycles. So, my itinerary is set until April. I’ve gone from running the kids around town, forgetting to unmute on Zoom, and planning a vacation with friends to being Guy with Cancer . I know, ‘Don’t let it define you! You

Monday, November 8, 2021 We walked into the Doctor's office for a post-surgical follow-up. My surgeon entered the room and greeted me by bellowing out "Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma!" He had already told me that he was an immigrant to this country, so I thought maybe the strange words coming out of his mouth were some sort of ritualistic greeting and that we were having a cultural disconnect. He then handed me the pathology report, which I quickly scanned. It took me a minute, but I eventually recognized the words on the page as the same words with which he threw open the office door. Only then did I understand that he was giving me a diagnosis by way of greeting. He immediately called the Oncologist to try and move my appointment, which had been scheduled for the following week, to the next day. That wasn't alarming at all. I asked him if it meant this kind of Cancer requires a sense of urgency. His rather succinct answer was, "Yep." I think he was trying t

Everything Up to Today Thursday, September 16, 2021 – Night I have never felt so uncomfortable in my life. It wasn’t the kind of uncomfortable that could be fixed by the fluffing of pillows. I wasn’t in pain. Pain would have been more straightforward, more manageable. This felt as if my body didn’t fit. I spent the night constantly shifting positions, moving from the bed to the floor to the couch and grabbing sleep in twenty minute increments. In the morning I got on a virtual visit with my Doctor. I suggested kidney stone. She agreed. A cupful of pee later seemed to confirm it. By late afternoon Saturday, my symptoms had all but disappeared, though it took me another week to fully recover from the physical stress.  By early October, I started to feel some pain in my crotchal region coupled with some mild swelling. Once again, I saw my Doctor – this time in person. She surmised that I never passed the stone and it was on the move. Not an atypical phenomenon. A “stone search” via CT sca