When the doctor says "Cancer", no matter how simple or minor the cancer may be, something happens inside your soul that will never be reversed. Before the doc can continue and explain all the things he wants you to know: survivablity, surgery options, radiation, chemo, diet and exercise, and all the rest, your mind races through everything you know about cancer, who you know that has had some sort or another, who lived and who died, what body parts would you give up to live another month...or year. Things like that.
I first had the doc say it to me in 2001. I went through all those thoughts, barely hearing what else the doc was saying. It turns out that if you are going to have a cancer, mine is the kind to have. Basal Cell barely rates as a cancer. Oh, if you ignore it it will make you ugly, especially if it is on your face, but it is not life-threatening and is pretty easy to take care of. So just after 9/11 I had the spot removed off my nose; it took about an hour and I was stuck wearing some big bandages for a while, but no big whup.
A year later I had another spot, another minor surgery, this time a skin graft was required to cover the hole and a huge bandage was literally sewn onto my face. Again, inconvenient and somewhat painful but generally no big whup.
Last year, in late spring, during a scheduled follow up, the doc tsked and said he needed to take a few biopsies...apparently my face was a fertile garden for the little buggers. Six more spots requiring removals. I had been through two previous spots so I thought I knew what to expect. The doc wanted to program them through the summer; he wanted to move from least invasive to most; he wanted to start right away. I had brazenly suggested he just go ahead and take 'em all at once. Fortunately, the doc is smarter than Big Dumb Daddy. I don't remember the exact order but I remember the first one was 'way worse than either of my previous spot removals. I felt more pain; I even felt shocky sometimes. I had throbbing reminders that I had an open wound on my face, and I had to change the dressings every morning and look into my face in the mirror.
Doc spaced the removals out to every three to six weeks depending on how big the current crater was and how well it was healing. All summer long I had huge gauze bandages on varying parts of my face: hairline above left eye and right eye, middle of right eyebrow, left side of the nose, right side of the nose, and another one...don't really remember exactly. It was a summer full of pain and discomfort and unpleasantness. The last one was the worst; the right side of my nose was excavated so deep and wide that you could have fit a quarter into it comfortably. The doc wanted to wait a week to let it start healing some before he put a graft in it. Then when he did it, I had the original wound and the donor site to dress every day...and more pain.
While going through these discomforts, I became extremely self-aware, not selfish or self-centered, but self-concerned and more than a little wimpy. This is not a plea for pity...I want you to understand a bit about how I felt during that summer so you might be able to appreciate better the fella I want to tell you about.
One Sunday just after the skin graft started stinging and itching, I walked into the chapel at church and was greeted by my buddy, Ray. I must have been looking pretty sorry, because put his arm on my shoulder and told me it was good to see me and he was sorry for all the discomfort I was experiencing. He was even aware of the teasing some of the guys were giving me about my bandages moving from spot to spot all over my face. He was understanding and comforting and exactly what I needed at that moment. Then it struck me who I receiving comfort from for my piddling little spots.
Ray was a former Airborne Ranger who had lost his job a couple of years prior to my summer of pain and had found a position at the Memorial Hospital organization here in the Swirl. One afternoon Ray collapsed while at work. If you are going to fall out, doing it in a hospital is about as good a deal as you could figure...especially if your docs had been discussing the recent death of comic TV star John Ritter...caused by a rare "aortic dissection". Ray was in the OR within minutes of falling down and they saved his life from the same tear in his aorta that Ritter died of. Ray recovered and was back at work soon. But they watched him closely, lots of follow-up stuff.
Ray, understandably, re-evaluated his life after that little brush. Don't misunderstand, Ray was a better man than most before the surgery, but he wanted to spend a little more time doing things he had been planning to do later on, after he retired or someday or whatever. He bought a Honda Goldwing and cruised through the mountains looking at the Aspen leaves changing colors in fall and stuff like that.
During one of his routine follow ups with the docs, they found a suspicious spot on an organ and biopsied it. It was an very aggressive form of cancer that needed a quick resolution. After some thought, Ray agreed to the surgery. We had talked about those options when we saw others we knew going through it and agreed that being gutted like a fish might be worse than living your life out with the cancer. But faced with the reality of it can change your perspective. They did the surgery and ran more tests and told him it looked good, they thought they got it all on the first go-round. Good news.
On his next or maybe the check up after that, they told him that there was more cancer. A lot more. And it was everywhere. More surgery was scheduled and more radiation but after a short while it was conceded that nothing they could do would change the inevitable by more than a few months and that as things progressed, the "life-saving" procedures would actually be more "life-threatening" than "life-saving". So after a couple of minor skirmishes and adjustments, Ray's life settled into waiting through immense pain and discomfort for it to end.
On his last ride through the mountains on his Goldwing, he roared through Cripple Creek and Victor, zipped up and down the two-lanes, and spent hours riding the wind. He had to have help getting off the bike and spent the next day in bed, but talked about getting back out there before too long. Most of his pain came from the cancer that had seeped into his long bones. He told me at one point that he was just one fall away from the end; if he broke a hip or a leg, it would be all over. They would never heal and he would be chair- or bed-bound to the end. Very near the end he asked that his friends respect his privacy and not try to visit him. His wife was with him constantly and she would relay updates. He said he knew that we loved him but he wanted the end to be private. And it was.
If you didn't know Ray, you would never have known his suffering and sorrow. You would never have known of the disappointment and frustration when procedure after procedure failed to fend off the cancer. You would not have known that he kept working for months after he should have quit, because of the insurance; he didn't want to put huge bills on his wife after he was gone. You would never have guessed any of this because Ray never talked about it with any but his closest friends; he always had a smile and handshake and a good word. His quick wit never faltered, and he never made an excuse. Not long before he died I watched him railing at a car full of teens who roared past the house, going too fast with booming stereo on full. I asked him what he would have done if they had stopped. He said, "I'd kick their butts". And he meant it and I ain't so sure he couldn't have done it.
This was the guy who put his arm around my shoulder and comforted me when my sniveling little inner kid was pouty about its hurty face. After a minute or two my adult surfaced and I felt so embarassed. I said, "Ray! What are you doing?" I think he recognized where my thoughts had gone and he just said, "It's okay, Jim...I care about you".
Ray has been gone for six months now. His wife, Regina, seems to be getting along okay ; her family pulled together for her at first and now they keep in touch better than they ever did before. Their house is a peaceful place to visit, that is if you catch Regina at home; she has been driving all over the country lately, helping out with family members who need her. When I read about my-cyber friends recently who have completed their treatments successfully, I understand not only the joy they experience at just being here, but also the pain and uncertainty that they experienced getting here. One such (Tova posts on JU and you should check her out) said to one of her commenters that she doesn't think she is any kind of inspiration. She's wrong. You all are, you that have suffered and came through the other end on top...and those who didn't. Those of you whose dignity and courage shined through. You didn't whimper orwhine or cry out "Why Me!" You are all examples and inspirations to us little snivelers here who forget for a moment that we live in a land populated by giants.