Been Dying So Long…
BEEN DYING SO LONG, IT LOOKS LIKE LIVING TO ME!
Okay, I understand that a lot of people are beginning to wonder if I have, or ever did have, cancer. After all, isn’t four years a long time for one guy to be terminal with leukemia? (I have to admit that there was that ersatz cancer back in the 70’s when a doctor diagnosed an x-ray shadow as “a remotely possible bone cancer.” I never went back for a biopsy, but I set about dying for a year or two of what, eventually, turned out to be a “dense bone mass due to an old injury.” That was several years before I got clean and sober. In truth, I suffered from a damned-near terminal case of dramatic indulgence and self-pity. And no, I don’t want to talk about karma right now.)
That was then, and this is now. In a fairly recent now–November 28, 2006, to be exact–oncologist Dr. Hool gave me the results of my latest bone marrow biopsy: After almost three years of fluctuating symptoms, I was officially out of remission. I was immediately signed up for Hospice Care. Depression set in, and that was at the high end of my emotional range.
For a few months prior to that November visit, my bone pain had increased to an almost crippling degree. Lethargy led me to sleep 16 to 18 hours out of every 24. The post-diagnostic depression did not help. On the upside, my insurance didn’t run out until March of ‘07, and my home health care was covered. Still, something was missing.
Ah, yes . . . resignation!
I just couldn’t embrace the supposed reality of my impending death. Since my 8-month hospitalization for AML in 2003, I have collected several doctors’ signatures on forms that claim I had anywhere from 48 hours to a few weeks or months to live. Some of those verdicts made me angry or mildly depressed, but I always found strength in “The Three P’s”: Perspective, Persistence and Prayer. Okay, so I was in denial; I was unrealistic, I was an idiot. I heard all of those too, but they didn’t stop me. Instead, I discovered emotional gifts and possibilities that made me more determined than ever not to give up. I trudged back up the soggy, brick road to the alternative doctor I reverently call my “Seattle Quack.”
The Quack took me on in June of ‘05, when one of the most prestigious cancer care centers in the country told me that I didn’t qualify for a marrow transplant and could only be offered palliative care (which, in case you haven’t heard the term yet, means “pain pills until you die.”) Under the Quack’s care my pain lessened, at least most of the time, and hey, I stayed alive.
Last November the Quack retested me, shifted my supplements and tinctures, and put me back on the Rife machine I had so idiotically sold when I left Seattle in May of ‘06. (Hey, I was better! What did I need with that machine any more? Besides, according to decades of antagonistic testing, the technology didn’t work anyway. I had signed a release attesting to my knowledge of that “fact” when treatment first began. I think it was something required by the government, whose faithful public servants look askew at cancer improvements outside of the drug companies’ purview: oops, where’d that soapbox come from?)
Within a few weeks of my new regimen, I had cut my pain meds in half and I was only sleeping 12 of every 24 hours.
As chance would have it, I then took a meeting on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA, with a group of people—most of whom I had never met before—which super-fueled the healing process.
The Agency Speakers, a talent management agency that had impressed me with rare qualities of ethical, moral and compassionate consideration for both their talent and their clients, had invited me to join their roster. The other speakers were kind enough to fly from around the country to meet near where I am now living.
Halfway through the second day in mid-December 2006, I realized I wasn’t so tired and had forgotten to take any pain medication. Our group was on the verge of creating an organization I had only dreamed of since my public speaking career had discovered me nearly 25 years ago. (For more information, click on •Agency Speakers Associates, when you return to the Blog site.)
My revitalized health regimen, plus a new focus on reinventing myself as part of a team designed to make a difference in the world, seems to have recharged my Spirit engine.
Oh, I’m still out of remission, but my January 8, 2007 visit with Dr. Hool revealed that the progression of my illness has virtually stalled, and I am, in my esteemed doctor’s words, “Looking healthier than I’ve seen you in months.”
Sure, it could all go south tomorrow, but who knows? Perhaps south is in the direction of healing. The Cancer Bear and I are still dancing, but at least I’m leading. Again.