A Funny Story About Cancer

A Funny Story About Cancer

  1:07 AM    Unknown

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A Funny Story About Cancer

This is, I hope, proof that you can make a funny story out of anything.

I'm going to start in a weird place, as I often do with these stories, and that's with my pants. I've lost about 35 pounds in the past several months, for reasons which will become obvious, and that has left me with exactly zero pants that actually fit. I dropped from size 42 pants to size 38 seemingly overnight, and even with a new belt, the size 38s drooped like a tent missing a pole.

Errr... maybe that isn't the best way to describe my pants.

Anyway, I never understood why I needed to replace my belt, since I bought the belt when I was much thinner. My niece reached the answer rather quickly.

"Because you stretched the belt out," she said.

It makes me glad that I wrote a few columns in the newspaper defending people's rights to wear saggy pants because sometimes you don't have a choice. I didn't have any other pants that fit!

So this weekend, my sister, Dena, bought me several pairs of 36s to try on. Most of them didn't fit either, and I realized then that my 38s might fit if I hadn't stretched them out, too.

But one of the pairs Dena bought fit, sort of, but only because it had a stretchy waistband. So now I have one pair of pants that fits and it's a skinny-legged pair of hipster pants that hugs my every curve like a long-lost lover. So basically I'm wearing jeggings.

Of course, I've had more serious concerns than stretchy pants, drooping pants, or even losing weight. Many people know I lost my voice about 2 months ago, and then I woke up one Saturday morning coughing blood, which led to the discovery of a mass on my lung.

Even before I lost my voice, I started losing feeling in my right hand, specifically my thumb and index finger. At first, I thought it was a carpal tunnel issue. Then, about a month ago, I started having these attacks where my entire hand would go numb and tingle for a few minutes, and starting with the second such attack, my teeth, gums and lips on the right side of my face would also go numb and tingle. It was almost exactly like getting a shot to deaden your jaw in the dentist's office.

This clearly was not carpal tunnel, which has no effect on the teeth or lips. It was so weird that one medical professional even suggested it might be psychosomatic, or in other words, all in my head. In a way, it probably was.

These attacks started happening more and more often. As I write this, I've had three episodes in four days.

I've lost strength and coordination in my right hand, which is especially bad, since I'm right handed. Little things are harder. Like, a friend of mine who was studying computer science once told me that some simple actions, like using a key on a lock, were extremely difficult for artificial intelligence. The robots cannot easily decipher all the fine adjustments, the muscle memory, and the sense of space and touch it takes to find that sweet spot which our minds find our us nearly automatically. I've noticed now that using a key on a door is quite difficult for me, so I can empathize with the robots.

I've also noticed that I'm not nearly as good at video games. My brother Dylan and I used to be pretty evenly matched in Madden football. The last game we played, he beat me 68-0, though I had one of my nerve episodes right in the middle of the game and could not even feel the controller at times. Now I've decided to give my Playstation 4 to my nephew.

The nerve attacks were worrisome, but Tuesday night, they were the least of my concerns. I have a bad tooth, and that joker was very, very bad Tuesday night.

The greatest pain I've ever experienced is when a tooth, aggravated by a neighboring wisdom tooth coming in, got infected in my mid 20s. It had bothered me for months, but then one night, that absessed tooth literally exploded. Imagine a bomb going off on a nerve ending, and you'll get some idea of how it felt.

I didn't sob, but tears poured from my eyes like faucets. I could feel the pain vibrating through my skin, emanating from my head like a malevolent bulb of pure agony. Women say childbirth is the worst pain, but I have a very hard time believing childbirth is worse than having a tooth explode in your mouth.

There was no escaping the excruciating misery. It was like a slasher movie where Jason or Michael Myers is always right behind you, waiting to do you harm. I could do nothing but meditate (I did that sort of thing back then) and it allowed me to manage the agony, like molding pottery made of broken glass. Finally, after hours... hours... the blood stopped pouring and the throb subsided.

I say all this to point out how bad the worst pain I've ever experienced was. Because I don't want to diminish the second worst pain I've ever felt:  The tooth pain I suffered Tuesday night.

It's a similar situation. My final wisdom tooth nudged the back tooth out farther and farther until it became the focus of my nightly tooth grinding, until it cracked. Since then, the pain has varied from only noticable when I pay attention to the feeling of a raging rhinocerous rampaging inside my mouth.

I was supposed to attend a county commissioner's meeting at 8:30 the next morning, so I went to bed early for me, which was 12:30 a.m. Every time I hit the bed, the tooth agony waged war on me. I would get up and brush my teeth, which relieves some of the tension, but not enough. I would push at the tooth with my tongue, which only made it worse.

Tears wanted to flow from me, and a few screams did. Of course, with a voice that sounds like I'm a hoarse whisperer, my screams sounded more like an unusually quiet goat's annoyed grunts.

Finally, exhaustion overcame the pain, and I drifted into sleep some time after 5 a.m. When I woke up at 8 a.m., I decided a good night's sleep was too important given my health status, so I went back to sleep. And then I woke up an hour later, so, so much for a good night's sleep.

I missed the second county commission meeting of the day because I was getting a PET Scan in Tifton after fasting for nearly 24 hours. I won't get too technical, mostly because I don't understand it, but a PET Scan examines you from head to thigh looking for hot spots that might be cancer.

It's a nerve-rattlingly boring process. Tift Regional Medical Center does not have a PET Scan machine, but a van travels South Georgia offering its services to hospitals throughout the region. The technician, whose name I think was Jordan, led me to the van and then injected me with a radioactive substance.

"Maybe I'll get super powers," I told her.

Then you wait for 45 minutes in a dark room slightly warmer than a meat locker. After the 45 minute wait, you get to sit in the machine in an equally cold room, although well lit, with your arms extended over your head like a medieval torture victim.

As I descended into the machine, Jordan asked me a question.

"Are you the writer?" she asked.

She was one of the listeners of the Up and Vanished podcast, and she also read my blog. It was the first time anyone outside of Ocilla or Fitzgerald had ever recognized me, and it was, I'll admit, quite flattering. It brightened what had been an awful day, but considering how agonizing the day before was and how frightening and emotional the day after was, that day was actually one of the best of the week.

I bought some Orajel that night to calm some of the tooth misery, and it did help some, and overall, the pain was not like the previous night, but I still spent several hours sleepless in bed. It was not the most comfortable rest as I had weighing on my mind what I would learn the next day: Whether I had cancer or not.

I had an appointment with my pulmonologist who probably would have the results of the biopsy she performed last week on the mass in my lung, and she also might have the PET Scan results. I won't say I dwelled on those thoughts, but they did pass through my mind.

One idea that only briefly played among my thoughts was the idea of how I would react if I had cancer and it was untreatable. I thought that I might consider suicide rather than wasting away in a hospital bed, but I also determined I probably wouldn't have the courage to go through with it, even if I decided I wanted to.

I'm just being honest. It crossed my mind.

So then we arrived at the doctor's office this morning, and from the expression on her face when she entered the room, I could tell I wouldn't be hearing good news. She was so kind about it, and I could tell she didn't want to have to tell me, but she did.

I have lung cancer.

The doctor told me she did not think the cancer was operable, but she thought the oncologist would treat it with radiation and chemotherapy. We had a plan, and I felt, not confident, but not particularly frightened either. I had expected that I had cancer, so I wasn't shocked.

My mom is a 12-year survivor of a similar lung cancer, so I thought, even if I may have bad genes, I must have some good ones, too.

The doctor said I was her second youngest patient, at 41, to have lung cancer, and that made me feel, in a sad way, exceptional.

But the doctor was also concerned about my other issues, particularly the nerve attacks in my hands and teeth. She wanted me to go today to get an MRI of my brain to see if there were any issues there. She also wanted to do another bronchoscope on the next day, Friday, to determine the stage of my cancer, which she said seemed to be Stage 3.

There was only one moment where I felt brimming with sadness. Since I learned to make music 3 years ago, I've said several times that I wanted to fall in love one more time before I died, if for no other reason the love songs I would make, but that doesn't seem like it's likely to happen now.

I could just imagine myself coming up to a lady in a bar, and saying, "Hey baby. Want to have a tragic romance?"

So we went back to the hospital, where I was recognized in another way, because people are getting used to seeing me there. I had the MRI, which was similar but less boring that the PET Scan, even though you have to sit in the MRI machine longer. The machine makes a lot of rhythmic whirs and grinding sounds, which sounded a lot like bad techno music, but it was better than nothing.

Afterward, I went to have pre-op meetings about the bronchoscope scheduled for the next day. This is where things got really dramatic.

The nurse led me through a series of questions about my health and medical history. Then she got to what she said were some new questions she had to ask, but only for people 6 years old or older.

She asked if I had considered suicide. In what I consider now to be a mistake, I was what I usually am, honest. And I said, "Yes."

I'm usually far too honest. One time another nurse asked me if I had ever used illegal drugs. I bet most people lie and say "No." I didn't. Her eyes got larger and larger with each drug I listed. I had an interesting time in my 20s, but I may be paying the price now.

The pre-op nurse today said I was the first person to answer "yes" for her to the suicide question. Again, I felt, in a sad way, exceptional.

She asked if I would like to pray with her, and as many of you have learned, I don't believe in prayer, so I said "No." I doubt she had encountered that answer before either, and I could tell it bothered her.

She had to check with someone else about how to react to my answer, so she asked me to sit with my family while she spoke with some other officials. I wanted to keep this whole thing quiet because I thought it would upset my already very upset mom. My sister is tough though, and I told her what was going on, since my mom couldn't hear me anyway due to my hoarse voice and her poor hearing.

Our adventures trying to communicate during all these medical visits would have been amusing to an outside observer. I have to repeat myself more than a skipping record.

The crazy thing about this whole "ask if they might be thinking about suicide" policy is that it made me think far more about the subject of suicide than I had the previous night when it was just a passing thought in the mind of someone who thinks quite a lot about a variety of subjects. I was annoyed by it, and almost angry, or maybe I just needed something to be angry about in that particular moment.

But the policy was not the nurse's fault. She was extremely kind and warm-hearted, just wanting to do the right thing, the best thing.

So when the nurse called me back to her office, I could tell she was upset. And even though I was the one with cancer, facing the prospect of my own impending mortality, I wound up holding her hand as tears fell down her cheeks. I reassured her that I was nowhere near attempting suicide, that it was only something I would consider if I had no other options, which I think should be a person's right.

I finally reassured her by saying I would talk to my friend who was a pastor. I suggest everyone keep a pastor as a friend. They are useful for certain situations.

The hospital wanted me to talk to someone from some sort of crisis center, but I did not want to do so, mainly because it would have had to be explained to my mom, who I thought would freak out if she heard suicide had even passed through my thoughts. I didn't give her enough credit.

Because when we left the hospital shortly later, my doctor called to ask me about what happened. The pre-op folks had said I had left without finishing because I didnt talk to the crisis folks, which, I was led to believe it was optional. I assured her that I wasn't suicidal, but I was honest that it was something I might consider if I ran out of treatment options, again, which I think should be someone's right.

Of course, Mama overheard the entire conversation, so there was no hiding what had happened. She didn't freak out at all. She's a survivor and she saw both her parents go through cancer. She knows how awful the experience can be, and she must know the dark thoughts which can enter someone's mind in that situation. If I've got any wisdom, some of it must come from her.

Then again, maybe she just knows me well enough to know that I'm too cowardly to ever kill myself.

After leaving the hospital, we went to Zaxby's to eat, and as we were finishing, the doctor's office called me. Or my mom, as I don't, nor will I ever, own a cell phone. But I answered her phone. This is like my friend who thinks he's saving the environment by not getting a drivers license but he still rides with other people.

The nurse at the doctor's office said the doctor got the results from the MRI of my brain and she had talked to my oncologist, and they wanted to change my plan of care. The doctor wanted to see if we could come by if were still in Tifton, which we were.

Logic told me something from that exchange. I had some other type of cancer. If she had called the oncologist after seeing my MRI results, and they decided to change how I was treated, that means they found something more.

So I got to be exceptional all over again. How many people do you think are told they have cancer twice in the same day?

The doctor told me multiple abnormalities were found in my brain, which in retrospect isn't all that surprising. My mom asked what kind of abnormalities, and the doctor said multiple malignancies, on both sides of my brain. One of those tumors was putting pressure on my brain, and it seems likely to be the case of the nerve attacks I've been suffering.

Suddenly, the lung cancer was a secondary concern. She re-evaluted and said the cancer was probably Stage 4.

And look, I've joked that maybe the tumors are why I'm so smart, assuming I am. And I've kidded that maybe they give me some sort of super power like people in movies who get a brain tumor and can read minds or see the future. But the truth is, I'm scared to death, y'all.

I can watch the bloodiest, goriest horror movies ever made, but if the film shows something with brains, I cringe away in disgust. You know that scene in Hannibal where Hannibal Lecter eats Ray Liota's brains. Nuh uh.

To me, my mind is me. I've never cared about my body or how it looked, just look at my grooming habits, and I don't believe in the soul, but learning that I had cancer for a second time in less than 12 hours and learning that cancer was in my brain wrecked me. I had been brave, but I felt so small and helpless in that moment, even if I somewhat expected it even before the doctor called us while we were eating.

I'm scared spitless that either the cancer in my brain, or the treatment to stop it, will leave me... not me.

Of course, it could be worse, maybe. A fan of Up and Vanished wrote me today on Facebook and suggested that my symptoms sounded like HIV to her. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it's been so long since I had any type of person-on-person relations that I probably would have learned I had HIV many years ago, if I had it.

But it's not HIV. It's cancer. Right now, I think I might prefer HIV. It's not like less people would have sex with me.

I haven't heard any sort of prognosis or percentages or estimates, but I can't imagine how my chances long-term are all that good. I'm young, true, but I think I would qualify for that term "eat up with cancer." Not only is it in my lung and brain, it may be in my lymph nodes as well. I'm trying to stay positive, but I'm also a realist, but that's what most pessimists think they are.

My doctor was worried after my answer to the suicide question, so she asked my family not to leave me alone tonight. I'm worried that I'll start to feel watched or like I'm a prisoner, and I think that would be counterproductive to me maintaining a good attitude. So far, my mom has not tried to curtail my freedom to come and go, and I thank her for that. I need alone time, maybe more than most people.

And I'm not giving up. I'm not at rock bottom. I want to get drunk quite a bit, but I won't. I haven't drunk a drop in more than a month because I don't want it making me weaker. I want to smoke pot, because it's one of the few things that I really love doing, but I won't because it might make me cough and do damage to my already damaged lungs, even if some say that marijuana shrinks cancer cells. I'm not doing these things because I think trying to stay healthy is more important than finding momentary happiness.

That may not be fighting exactly, but it's sure not giving up.

I'm a writer. I have so much more left to say before I give up, and if the worst comes and I'm wasting away in a hospital bed, if I can still type at a laptop and my brain is still working enough to form sentences, then there is no danger of me chosing another option. I'll keep on writing.

I know I have a lot of prayers and well wishes. Because of my coverage of the Tara Grinstead case, I've gotten supportive messages from people all across the country, and even Canada. I'm glad I got to make an impression on the world if this winds up being terminal.

A lot of you know I don't believe in prayer, and I'm sorry that some of you find my beliefs offensive. If it helps, I set aside many of my disagreements with the beliefs of others that I find offensive. At least for the last year or so, I've tried to cultivate an environment of being cordial and respectful to each other, even in disagreement, through my online interactions. I think in this time of social media, many of us have forgotten the value of having manners and the value of treating each other like neighbors rather than enemies, even when we disagree.

I have disagreements with every friend I have. But they are still my friends.

And I know a lot of you held your tongue as I voiced my complaints about religion recently. I noticed, and I thank you for it. For too long, I've felt like I couldn't express my true beliefs for fear of reprisal from those who disagreed. Instead, I mostly got love from my neighbors, and even if those tongues were held in check because of concern for what I was suffering, I appreciate the freedom I was given to express my beliefs with only a minimum of anger and aggression directed at me.

Maybe I didn't give you enough credit.

Those few who decided they could not disagree without being insulting, I blocked them on Facebook because I don't have time to spend my energy angry and arguing. But I'll discuss and debate all day long, and I enjoyed some of my discussions lately quite a bit. Of course, one of those people I had fruitful debates with, who even convinced me of a different way to handle the offerings of prayer I received, she wound up blocking me. Fair enough, I suppose.

I still don't believe in prayer, but I've backed away from my "don't pray for me" stance. People are only praying because they think it will help and because it allows them to feel like they are helping when they otherwise feel helpless. It's also inevitable and a kindness.

But it's also meant to be a kindness when I tell you how I see things because I only want you to see that the world is not made of supernatural forces, but is instead a world of rationality and science. I worry that a world in which two religions, namely Christianity and Islam, cannot exist in peace will almost certainly end in, to borrow a phrase, fire and fury. I don't know if there is a way to save humanity from the smoldering Holy War, but I think you won't convince many Christians to become Muslims or Muslims to become Christians. I think our only hope is to present a different option to those two warring sides, a reasonable one.

I just want a better world in the one we know exists.

A young family member of mine recently talked to me about her thoughts about choosing a religion. She's mature enough to know she's not old enough to make a decision about such an important topic, but she's thinking about it. I didn't encourage her to choose any specific relgion or even to choose no religion at all. I simply said that no matter what she chooses, she should not reject science. I said we have to be able to agree on the facts or we are lost, and like it or not, science has the facts, at least the ones that are known.

I did say one more thing. Religion claims to have all the answers, but only has very few. Science has millions of answers, but does not claim to have all of them.

I'm always astounded when people say "So you believe we came from monkeys?" To me. I've gotten that question a few times lately, and it's not what evolution has shown. Evolution shows that we came from a common ancestor as monkeys, true, but it's not like there was a monkey, and then poof, there's a human. And even though some people treat evolution as if it's a belief, it's not really. It's whether you accept the fact of evolution or not.

I've had this argument since I was about 9 years old. I told a friend of mine of the same age about evolution, and he got mad. "I didn't come from no monkey. You might have, but I didn't!" Or something like that. It was the first time I encountered someone rejecting the facts because they wanted them not to be true. It wasn't the last, but it's a sentiment that still bothers and bewilders me. That sentiment invades and poisons our country like, well, like a cancer.

But like I said, I'm a realist. Or so I think. Maybe there's just something wrong with my brain.

I had an interesting idea today that you may find amusing. I was walking to my house and thought, "I might run into a rattlesnake," as if that was an encounter that would terrify me. But then I thought, "What does it matter?" I could pick up the rattlesnake now and what harm would it really do?

Then, I thought, if I picked up a rattlesnake and was able to put it down without getting bitten, I might actually pray then.

And no, I don't want to try. If some snake handler shows up with a rattlesnake for me to carry, I'm going to shoot them both. I'm not particularly afraid of going to jail right now either.

Of course, I'm kidding.

And guys, I know many of my friends are very upset now, but a lot worse has happened to a lot better people. I have an undeserved reputation as a "good guy" because of the way I handled some of my reporting, but it's mostly just the fact that I'm trying to promote being kind and cordial to each other, which is good, but I haven't always been nor am I always now so kind, cordial or good.

And there's no one but myself to blame for my problems. I smoked three packs a day for 20 years. I smoked a lot of marijuana and some weird things, like cacti and sage because I thought it might make me high. Like I said, my 20s were interesting. I ate a convenience store worth of junk food, lived in houses with black mold, never cleaned those houses, and generally treated my body like crap.

Then again, if I find out I only have about 42 years on this earth, I'm going to be pretty glad I didn't spend days of them mopping kitchens and scrubbing toilets. Or using cell phones.

I don't know what happens next. I'm scared. But I cannot tell you what it means to know so many people love me. I don't always have the highest opinion of people, but there is something so good about people when they consider you one of their own, and so many of you seem to consider me part of your tribe. I never thought I'd feel that kind of love in my life, but I do.

I love y'all.

I'm crying now. But I hope you found a few laughs in all this horror. I did, and boy did I need it.