Five Years

Posted on Joe's FB Tuesday evening. Five years ago tomorrow night, just after 2200, Dr. Luana Hess walked into my little exam room at Wood County Hospital with a look on her face that I will never, ever forget.

 “You have a tumor on your kidney. A very large tumor. It may not be cancer, but…” – and she trailed off, the sentence unfinished because it didn’t need to be finished. “We’re going to admit you for the night.”

Part of me wonders how often she did it. How often did she tell people that they have a tumor? How often did she get to pull the first thread in the unraveling of a life?

Things changed so much, so fast in the first five days of diagnosis. “You are a VERY sick man,” Dr. Manuel De La Serna warned me. He, the night after, finished Dr. Hess’ sentence. Maybe it’s not cancer – but there’s more than a 90 percent chance that it is.

Percentages. A ninety percent chance it’s cancer. And as I learned that night from Dr. Google, a five percent survival rate over five years, if I indeed had Stage III or IV renal cell carcinoma.

Five percent. FIVE percent.
That number scared the hell out of me; it still scares the hell out of me. Five percent was what kept me up at night. Five percent was why I drove to the Basilica at Carey between diagnosis and surgery, and wept and wept and wept.

And then somewhere along the way, five percent became a motivator. Can I make it to that? Can I be part of that five percent?

So here I am today. I’m part of the five percent. In the five years to five percent we’ve been through three blood clots, two clinical trials, one brutal month of Interleukin-2. We’ve been through crises of finances, friendship, family, and most recently, faith.

Two months ago, if you’d ask me how I’d feel on my five year cancerversary, I’d have told you about the party I was planning in the back of my head! I’d stand atop the rooftops and beat my chest, and howl about the fact that cancer threw some good frickin’ punches, and I’m still standing. This blog, as prewritten in my head in February, was very different from what you’re reading now.
But the past 40 days of recovering from this blasted blood clot and related surgeries have done something to me, they’ve taken something away from me. I’m not celebratory anymore. I’m scared. 
Thursday, I’ll have treatment for the first time in six weeks. In two years, I’ve never been off nivolumab this long. I’m scared to death, scared like a little kid. Was this pause in treatment long enough for cancer to pick its ugly ass up off the mat and fire some punches at me while I was down? When I have scans in two weeks… what are they going to show?

I trust in the Lord. I really do. And I know that nothing between now and those scans is going to change anything. His will for me was written long before this week, and I hope I am strong enough to not just accept it, but embrace it.

Last Sunday, I broke down during Father Mark’s homily. It was the same homily so many of us have heard in so many different Christian churches. On Good Friday, even Jesus wanted God’s will to be different. On the cross, Jesus screamed out at his father, “Why have you forsaken me?!” I understand, and accept, that we go through our personal Good Fridays to get to the eternal life promised by Easter Sunday.

You know what the problem is, though, as I’m getting ready to leave for ANOTHER doctor appointment on this blood clot business? The problem is, I’m pretty greedy. I love this life. I love my wife, my kids, my family, my friends, my job, my community – I love all of it. And I want to hang out here longer. Not just a little longer, I’m greedy. I want to be around a lot longer. I want to have time to make new friendships, mend old ones. Hell, I want time to screw up more friendships, and then mend those ones up, too! I made it across this five year line, and man, am I ever grateful for it!!! When I got diagnosed, the kids were soooo little, and now they’ll at least have fairly vivid, fairly meaningful memories of me. But I sure would like more.

So instead of a chest-thumping five year party tomorrow night, I think I’m gonna take a long pull of sparking water, toast the past five with sincere gratitude… and drink to five more.