I was fooled by a 7-year-old into thinking that chemotherapy was easy.
In 2006, I was fresh out of journalism school and eager to cover whatever my central Missouri newspaper gig threw at me. When my editor assigned me a story on Tim Grant and what would be his final battle with neuroblastoma, I didn't know what to expect.
During my first two-hour ride to the hospital to document one of Tim's chemo sessions, I tried to picture chemotherapy. This was a pre-"50/50" world. When I thought "chemo," I imagined Tim in a steel tube or iron lung being bombarded with cancer-fighting radiation -- which also sapped his strength and youth on a daily basis.
You can imagine my surprise when I got there with the news team; Tim lifted his shirt, and the hospital staff connected him to an IV. For hours, Tim sat there getting a drip, playing video games, napping -- you name it. He was a normal kid who got some medicine through his chest; no big deal to the Superman shirt-wearing boy.
Fast forward to 2012. I'm visiting Chicago for a friend's wedding. I notice some lumps on my neck. Suddenly, the walls of a boutique on Michigan Avenue start pulsating and it's pretty clear I'm not right. Over the following few days, I undergo a litany of tests and, once the results come back, a doctor tells me over the phone that I have stage 2 Hodgkin lymphoma.
I immediately sigh in relief and go back to work.
Don't get me wrong: I didn't want cancer, but everyone says that if you have to get one, this is the cancer to get. Survival rates are close to 90 percent for doofuses my age, so I actually see the good in all this. I call loved ones -- which is an immediate red flag; I'm a texter -- and make them guess why I might be calling out of the blue. Fans from around the world send in well wishes, but I'm excited to have a new wrinkle in my self-deprecating online talk show. I tell co-workers and they cry. But, being a workaholic, I rarely take time for myself, so I'm actually looking forward to the opportunity to have guiltless Friday afternoons of chemo, video games and comics.
I saw Tim do it years before, right? How hard can chemo be?
I come in for that first Friday session, they do all the diagnostics on my body, and then, the drip starts. They're going to give me this drug and that drug to make this "cocktail." They're writing notes and my head's spinning. There's a bell I can ring if I need water or help, and they say the whole thing should take a few hours. A nurse comes in and tells me that one out of some ungodly large number of patients is allergic to a drug they're going to give me, so they have to test it first. They put a drop under the skin on my left arm, and I lightly "ow" at the sting. The nurse says that's interesting and that they'll keep an eye on it. Then she leaves.
As the doctors prepare my drug cocktail, my girlfriend -- whom I tried to stop from coming because I was so sure I'd be able to take the bus to and from chemo -- tells me a story about work. Then BAM! The entire left side of my body goes numb. I lift my left arm like a 3-foot-long wet noodle and slam it down on the bell.
"Is something wrong?" my girlfriend asks.
"Yesh, mah leff -- " I respond before realizing that the deadening of my left side has also knocked out my lips, so I'm talking like I just had a root canal.
The nurse enters, I mumble an explanation, and she runs to find the doctor.
"Keep talking to me," my girlfriend says. "Tell me what's happening."
"Yer mowf iz tinfl," is what I get out.
" ... What?"
When someone tells you that "some people" might be allergic to a drug, you rarely get the full explanation of what might happen. Turns out that if you're allergic to the chemotherapy drug bleomycin, like I am, vision loss is one of those side effects.
By the time the doctor and nurse return, I can see people's eyes, but everything beyond that is 360 degrees of shiny tinfoil being crinkled in a really fantastic rainbow-colored light.
The panic subsides as my system is flushed, and then my first treatment begins. I'm introduced to the chemo drug that will eat through clothing and skin if it gets loose, the hum of fluorescent lights and near-constant chemo headaches.
Hours later, the first round of what would be my six-month cycle is done, and my girlfriend and I climb into her car; we're rocked. She drops me off at home to lie down while she goes to get groceries. I enter the bedroom to pull off clothes and get into bed for a feverish sleep, but on my way to the bathroom, I stop in front of our closet.
For the first time since being diagnosed, I cry.
It's a complete breakdown. After weeks of jokes, it's clear that I had drastically underestimated cancer; it strikes me, this will not be the adventure I thought it was. However, I'm also crying for Tim. I drastically underestimated that 7-year-old boy; I saw him playing games and talking to his mother, and I thought chemo was weak -- but in reality, Tim was just strong. He was stronger than me and stronger than so many of us ever knew.
The next six months sucked. My emotions were uncontrollable, I wasn't fun to be around and those chemo sessions got worse and worse. But eventually, I got better. Doctors often won't call a cancer patient "cured" until he or she is five years out from treatment (and I'm not yet five years out), but I'm currently cancer-free and just moved from having to do checkups every six months to having checkups only once a year.
The thought of Tim, and all he went through kept me going during those awful chemo sessions. He might've duped me into thinking chemo was easy, but I'll never be able to repay him for inspiring me when chemo seemed too hard.
True healing requires more than just medicine and treatment. Dignity Health knows that quality health care begins with kindness and compassion. When heart and health go hand-and hand, amazing outcomes are possible.