A Year Since I Met Cancer

Last night, a friend of mine said, “It’s almost winter again.  Seem like it was just last week.”

Most years I agree with that sentiment.  This one has been much different.  This time last year, I found out I had cancer.  At various times, time has slowed to a crawl and (most recently) sped to a dizzying pace.

It had stalked me for seven months.  But, like most stalkers, it wouldn’t be able to keep its identity a secret.  I never associated the on again off again pain in my back with the anything serious, let alone cancer

The chemotherapy loomed in front of me for nearly four weeks.  There were the combined emotions of dread and anxiety to get it over with.

Then I was in the thick of it, having to be hospitalized when my body had a worse than typical reaction to the toxic drugs that fought the grapefruit-sized tumor near my lower spine.  A few days later, my beard and most of the hair on my head fell out—just in time for one of the coldest winters on record.  The cancer provided the perfect excuse to stay inside.

The last chemo treatment was in late January.  February was a blur of mouth sores that kept me from eating or speaking and fatigue that kept me from walking more than a few feet.  I dropped 25 pounds and looked like a stick figure, but was reacquainted with my abs.

In March, I was able to be on my own again, after several weeks of being cared for by my parents at their home over an hour away.  After being frailer than at any other time in my life, being on my own again scared the hell out of me, but I knew it was the only way I would fully regain my strength.

Appetite, weight, strength—they all came back gradually, in lock step with each other.  This was unlike an organ transplant, when the medications caused my appetite and weight to increase faster than any other time in my life.  Maybe that’s why this time all the weight came back lean.  By mid-July, I had regained all that I lost, but my pants have been loose since then.

I don’t recommend the cancer diet plan, so don’t envy me.  But it’s ironic that I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in.  After a couple or organ transplants and cancer.  At 47.  I have to laugh every time I think about it.

This was more brief but more intense than anything else I’ve had to face.  All that other stuff helped prepare me for this.  Just before I got out on my own again, my dad told me, “As determined as you are, I know it won’t be long before you get your strength back.  You’ll do what you have to do to make sure of that.”

It meant going to the gym again, something I’ve liked to do for 25 years.  It meant not being self-conscious about how thin and weak I was when I first went back.  It meant getting to watch the man in the mirror become less pitiful and more familiar.

This summer, I got to meet the latest version of myself.  He’s much more confident than the previous one.  The chemo left the hair thinner over his ears (of all the weird places for that to happen) so he wears a slightly shorter haircut to keep it from standing out.  He has to wear a belt more often.  He has a more intense side that he allows to come out and play (and write) once in a while.  Most things just seem easier for him now.  He’s much more driven to succeed.  And he looks older, too.  But, he’s quite comfortable in his skin, even if it has a few more wrinkles. 

Most important, he has a better sense of what he’s capable of.

In many ways, the cancer was a gift.  Even though I lost valuable time moving the writing career ball down the field, I just wouldn’t be the same man today without the experience.

This is my latest dance with “What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger.”  I know it by heart, but I wish the band would learn a new song.

To celebrate this milestone, I’m flying to Philadelphia this weekend to visit my friend, Alan, a fellow cancer survivor.  It’s the first time I’ve flown alone in almost ten years—since before my vision worsened.  I remember an old Elton John song from the 70s, Philadelphia Freedom.  The lab numbers from a few weeks confirmed that I am free of cancer.  Flying doesn’t make me nervous.  Once I’m past airport security and high above the clouds, I might feel even freer than I do on the ground these days.

Hard to imagine, but possible.  After the past year, I don’t put limits on my imagination or the possibilities.

Eight Years With Her Kidney

This post is a couple of weeks late.  I was in a funk for a few weeks, feeling pretty overwhelmed by how fast the publishing industry is changing and all the stuff a writer has to do these days to self-promote.  You’d think someone with a degree in advertising wouldn’t be bothered by this, but it’s all online these days.  A visually-impaired, right-brained artistic type can be intimidated pretty quickly by it all.  Worst of all, it can make me feel pretty stupid and inadequate.

But, I’m coming to terms (again) with all that and moving forward (again) at the pace of a snail—one that can’t see where it’s going.

I was also overwhelmed by life in general.  Who?  Me?  If that surprises you, carefully read the subtitle of my blog again.  Just saying it is a mouthful.  Living it is a bit more challenging than that.  I try not to complain about it, but there are times when it’s every bit as hard to do as it sounds.  The problem was, I allowed myself to focus more on how hard it is for me and ended up throwing myself a big ol’ pity party--complete with balloons, a live band (playing only sad songs, of course), a sad clown, and games like Pin the Fail On the Writer.

The other day, I located the Live Strong bracelet my Aunt Judy got for me when I had cancer and have started wearing it again.  Not only does it remind me of how much of stronger I am after surviving that, but it serves as a rubber band I can use to snap my wrist when a negative thought overstays its welcome.  It’s working and I don’t have welts on my wrist, either.

Part of the blues was due to September being a minefield of unpleasant anniversaries.  I’ll spare you the list of disappointments and traumatic events.  Even as a kid, I used to get wistful in September, missing summer and already discontent with the still-new school year.

But, there is one very happy even that took place in this otherwise intense month.  On the 4^th I celebrated eight years with my kidney Connie gave me.  This was one of the rare years when I got to actually spend part of the day with her.  I took her and my parents to lunch at Red Lobster.  I had the coconut shrimp—two great tastes that go great together.  Whoever came up with coconut shrimp is a genius.

As you can imagine, having a live donor is a very different experience than a transplant from a deceased donor.  I know this because my pancreas and first kidney came from a young man who died in a car accident.  There are so many questions about him I wish I could have answered.  That isn’t the case with Connie, who had us laughing at stories about her granddaughter born last year, now at a very cute and sometimes challenging age.  I hope she’s proud of her grandma someday.  She has plenty of reason to be.

Most people who have known me for the past several years will tell you I’m a survivor.  That I’m at times feisty, stubborn, sassy, tenacious, optimistic, driven, ambitious, and creative.  It was that way before 2003.  I may have received a boost in those qualities when I got Connie’s kidney, because all those terms can be used to describe her as well.  Unlike with the pancreas and first kidney transplant, I never had to wonder if part of the donor’s personality was asserting itself in my behavior.

Thank you, Connie.  I’m doing all I can to make you proud of me.  (Not that it was ever a condition of the gift).  I need to remember God wanted you to give me this kidney.  If it’s God’s will, my memoir will be published.

Seeing Connie again has given me the nudge (shove, fire lit under my butt . . . ) to renew my efforts at getting my memoir published.  I have an unusual and inspiring story to tell.  I’ve lived with my odd situation for so long now that I sometimes forget that.  Sometimes I forget (and other times I’m only too aware) that not everyone is a legally blind former diabetic writer with a transplanted kidney and pancreas (from two different people) living in a quirky college town.  Oh yeah, and now I can say cancer survivor, too.  One or two people might be interested in hearing me speak about it.  With any luck, a few more will be interested in reading about it, too.

I'm (Still) Here Because of Mom

It was probably just a miscalculation.  It makes more sense than the other explanation for the tardiness of my grand entry--my debut, so to speak.  Whatever the reason—mathematical or biological—I was born six weeks after the due date.

I’ve never liked being rushed.

In those days, they didn’t induce labor.  Dad took Mom for a ride on a bumpy road hoping I would take the hint, but it didn’t work.  You can’t rush quality, as I’ve pointed out to my mother on several of my birthdays.  I even held out until a few minutes after midnight, just so it would be a day later.  But I was born on her grandmother’s birthday.  That counts for something, right?

She’s been putting up with odd and willful behavior ever since.

Actually, I was an extremely well-behaved kid until my teens.  I was easily entertained, made good grades, and my teachers never had to yell at me (much).

Then, right after hitting puberty, I was diagnosed with diabetes.  Suddenly, my parents didn’t quite know what they had on their hands.  Still basically a good kid at school, my mother discovered that I had inherited her strong will, which sometimes clashed with hers.

What can I say?  I am my mother’s son.

From her I also got a positive attitude and just enough Cherokee blood for dark blue eyes and skin that tans easily in the sun.  I’ve been told the three make a nice combination.

On the surface, she’s like millions of Southern women from her generation.  She writes Thank You notes by hand and organizes the main food entrees whenever someone at her church dies.

But, she was tough enough to sing to me and my brother when I was four years old while a killer tornado ripped through the town where we lived.  She’d placed us under my parents’ bed, but only her head and shoulders would fit underneath.  There she was, singing to us so we wouldn’t be afraid, while most of her body was left vulnerable to whatever might land on her.  Fortunately, our home was spared.  But, it was my first real hint of the tough survivor beneath the sweet exterior.

Ever the maverick, the nomad, wanderlust took me to Tampa, Kansas City and Dallas.  I was out of college and anxious to experience the world—at least some of the urban U.S.  She stayed in Arkansas and worried about me.  Her little boy was on his own in the big city, an environment she never much cared for.  I had only lived in Austin a few months when the diabetic complications began.  Then I was back with her and my father in their home, terrified of the big, dark question mark that loomed in front of me.

She had to draw up my insulin shots when internal eye hemorrhages made it impossible for me.  She put the drops and ointment in my eye in the first few weeks after I had surgery to remove the blood inside my eye, staring unflinchingly at what must have been a gruesome sight.  She shared my despair and joy as my vision fluctuated.  And that positive attitude never wavered.

A few years later, my kidneys failed, and she was right there beside me; at the training class for new peritoneal dialysis patients; driving the two hours to Tulsa, where I lived, to help me until I regained some strength; and always offering words of encouragement over the phone.

A year later, my parents’ endurance would be put to a big test when I had the kidney/pancreas transplant.  There were a few complications and I ended up spending more than three weeks in the hospital.  They had to watch me struggle and suffer.  At one point I almost died.

But, with their help, I pulled through.  Mom does so much for me and would do much more if my independent nature allowed it.  She sets out to take care of everyone she knows and cares about.  Yes, I got that kind of mother—one who can cook and bakes sweets no one can resist.

She won’t touch a computer, but remembers birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and every other occasion in the lives of people around her.

Over the years, she’s nursed me back to health more times than I can count.  This past year, she did it again.  This time, it was cancer.  There were times I was nauseous and too frail to make it to the bathroom.  I had to use a plastic container, which she emptied without complaint dozens of times.  When the mouth sores made it impossible for me to eat solid food, she spent hours searching the grocery store for something soft enough.  She had to watch her boy take on the appearance of a frail old man.  The worst part for her, like any mother, was watching helplessly while I suffered.

You eased my suffering more than you’ll ever know, Mom.  It’s no exaggeration when I say I couldn’t have survived this without you.  You gave me life, and you keep helping me hold on to it.