Everything Up to Today, or how John Cougar Mellencamp gave me Cancer

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 scan was ordered for October 20. 

Friday, October 22, 2021

Virtual visit with my Doctor to discuss the findings of the CT scan. There was no stone. I must have passed it, or maybe there never was one. This was the first time the word “Lymphoma” was used.

The CT scan revealed lymph nodes throughout my abdomen. A PET scan was ordered.

Tuesday, October 26, 2021 – PET Scan 

If you're like me, then when you hear the term "PET scan" you instantly think of a little labrador puppy. The real thing is not quite so cuddly. The first thing they do when you arrive for a PET scan is to shoot you full of radioactive sugar syrup, like some sort of post-apocalyptic latte. Then, you have to lay around for 70 minutes while the stuff circulates. You just lay there… with your thoughts. I tried to sleep – it was 6:30 in the morning – but it didn’t take. I turned on the TV and found a competition show for home distillers. It passed the time.

If you’ve had an MRI or a CT scan, a PET scan splits the difference. An MRI is kind of like a cannoli, a CT scan more like a doughnut, a PET scan is a bagel with a gesunde schmear. They play music for you while you’re in the machine. As I lay down, the song was John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Hurts So Good”. 

        When I was a young boy
        Said put away those young boy ways
        Now that I'm getting older, so much older
        I long for those young boy days

        Hurts so good

        Come on, baby, make it hurt so good

The optics were unfortunate. Twenty minutes of Yacht Rock later, and I was out the door.

"John Mellencamp - DPAC - 3/1/11" by JordanMontgomery is licensed under CC BY 2.0

My Doctor called me at 11:30 that morning. I know it was 11:30 because we had a Board Meeting starting via Zoom right when she called. I muted, turned off my video, and answered the phone. She said that the PET scan revealed lymph nodes which were “metabolically active,” and “worrisome for Lymphoma.”

Now, I love my Doctor. She’s been taking care of Shawnna and I for over a decade and has a wonderful combination of scientific confidence and motherly nurturing. She also seems to understand, or at least accept, my dysfunctional relationship with the American medical system, which I view with the competing and simultaneous qualities of admiration and contempt. That being said, “worrisome for Lymphoma” is a completely oblique phrase. As out of style as it may be these days, I still appreciate the need for sound conclusions based on scientific evidence. I know that she was reluctant to offer a diagnosis without clear data. I get all that, but Cancer should be binary, definitive. You should either have it, or not have it. This is not a time to soften the blow with qualifiers. “Worrisome for Lymphoma” is unhelpful language.

Monday, November 1 – Levine Cancer Institute… for realz 

If you’re gonna have Cancer, at least they can send you to a building bearing your name. While I do not descend from the monied Levines, I like to think we were once cousins in neighboring shtetls.

Shawnna and I met with a Surgical Oncologist who specializes in the head and neck. I like him. He’s a little goofy, which works for me, and is, himself, a survivor of Stage 4 Lymphoma. His job is to remove a lymph node from my neck, and send it to the lab so we can figure out whether it's Lymphoma, and, if it is, which kind. Then, we’ll meet with the Medical Oncologist to come up with a treatment plan. Surgery is scheduled for tomorrow. (It was supposed to be a couple of weeks away, but he had a last minute cancellation. Less than 24-hours notice is a hell of a lot better than dragging it out.) While it may take a week for pathology to identify the kind of Lymphoma, they should be able to confirm the existence of Lymphoma while I'm still on the operating table. If they do, he'll go ahead and install a central line port so I'll be ready for chemo. In other words, if I wake up with a port, then I’ll know I have Cancer.

Tuesday, November 2 – Post-op

I woke up with a port.