A year ago today, I got blindsided by life.
My wife was in London on a trip in service to one of the nonprofits she volunteers for. The two of us were speaking via WhatsApp, when another call came through on my phone.
“Gotta go,” I said. “It’s the doctor.”
“Go!”
This was the call we were dreading, but still quite anxious to take. A few months ago, I’d spotted a lump under my jaw while shaving. As a writer, I’ve perfected the arts of avoidance and procrastination. I did my best to ignore the lump. After all, I had a physical coming up, I told myself. I’d mention it to my doctor then, a date which was three months in the future. That physical led to a battery of subsequent tests. And here on the line was my ear, nose, and throat specialist.
“It’s cancer,” he told me. “We don’t know what type yet, but I’m gonna make a referral. Get the ball rolling. You’re going to hear from the radiation oncologist within the next two days. Just sit tight. In a little while we’ll know exactly what kind it is.”
Here’s a piece of advice. Don’t Google head and neck cancer. Just don’t. The images are terrifying, and there are far too many different forms of cancer to be speculating about each without hard evidence.
All I knew at the moment was that I had cancer. But life wasn’t done with me yet. I hung up the phone intending to call Denise. But another call came through, this time from my brother in California.
“Dad’s gone, Joe,” he said. “It just happened.”
My father had entered the hospital the previous Friday after one of his home care workers found him sitting in bed complaining of a headache. He had trouble standing. At 91, Dad had a litany of health issues but he’d managed to bounce back for decades. He came from a long line of people who had miraculously lived into their nineties. His brother died at 92, his mother at 95, his aunt at 100, his uncle at 103. I’d last seen my father in June, and he still had all his marbles.
That all ended Friday. He needed immediate surgery for a brain bleed. That procedure went well, supposedly, but he hadn’t woken up post-op, as his doctors had wanted him to. At that age, if he didn’t immediately wake he never would. They recommended we take him off life support. We agreed. I was prepared for it. My brother asked if I wanted to speak to him before they did, but I said no. It felt like a foolish gesture for a guy in North Carolina to mouth words into a phone to a man lying in a bed in California in a virtual coma. I had just seen him a month ago! I struggled to remember: when we parted, had I told him how much I loved him?
I phoned Denise. “It is cancer,” I said, “and my father died.”
“Wait, what?” she said. “When did that happen?”
“Just now. My brother called.”
“We were off the phone five minutes!”
Well, sometimes it only takes five minutes for shit to go sideways.
Since then, my life has been on hold. The cancer turned out to be HPV-positive, which is eminently treatable; the chances of recurrence post treatment is less than five percent. Still, no one wants to wake up in the morning with only two things on their to-do list:
1. Get chemo
2. Blast face with gamma rays.
All the plans we had for the rest of the year evaporated. Naturally, I could not attend my father’s funeral because I now had a flurry of pressing medical appointments. That was crushing and painful. I used that time to hastily wrap up all current projects. I wrote a slew of articles for SleuthSayers, the mystery writers blog I write for, and scheduled them so there would be no interruption in my presence there. I submitted the book I was ghostwriting to my clients for review. Commitments honored, I proceeded to drop the ball on everything else. The garden went to crap. Receipts piled up. This blog and website went dormant. Short story ideas and personal book projects dried up. Any time I managed to get to the mailbox, I found a half dozen more fat envelopes with hospital bills and statements from the insurance company. They piled up too.
It’s been a year. The treatment’s over, as is the rehab, such as it was. I’m still quite scrawny, having lost 45 pounds and gained back half, mostly in the form of pasty white fat.
I’m just getting around to picking up the pieces. I’m told that somewhere under the detritus of my office lies my desk. I’ll let you know if I find it. That said, in the next few months I hope to be more present here. Tidy the place up. Post more often. Think. Write. Play the mother of all catch-ups.
Please don’t say you’re sorry for me. because I know you are. Hey, I’m one of the lucky ones. I still have my tongue, larynx, and pharynx. I’ll have a sexy, gravelly voice and live with dry mouth—and lozenges and gallons of drinking water and incessant peeing—for the rest of my life. Small price to pay. It could have been worse but wasn’t, for which I’m so, so grateful.
Just do me three favors: First, love those whom you love—loudly. If you have kids, get them the HPV vaccine. And if you find a lump, get it checked out. Like, now.
Image by Joshua Earle @ Unsplash