First of all, calling my ordeal a "fight" with cancer could be giving me an excessive amount of credit. I know a complete bunch of many people that have full-blown, knock-down, drag-out slugfests with cancer. They're the toughest men and women you'll ever meet. Comparing my scenario with theirs will be an insult to them. But, if you like that sort of fighting metaphor, I guess you could summarize my skirmish with cancer like this:
Cancer and I got inside the ring and put up our dukes. Then, when cancer wasn't fairly ready, I kicked it certainly hard in the crotch and ran away.
Still the whole thing was scary, and I truly did get lucky. I could effortlessly have died if this cancer had spread. Inside a heroic display of manly stupidity, I let a malignant lump sit unidentified on top rated of my tailbone for almost 9 years.
What makes it even worse is that I scared the hell out of my wife who was pregnant with our son (born May 27, 2005 & named Andrew Harris) although I was busy having surgeries, MRI's, Bone Scans, biopsies, and even more.
Well, here's a little trip back in time to explain the complete thing. Before you start, I want you to genuinely grasp something: I'm fine. As I sit here writing this, I appear to become 100% cancer free. Of course
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, having cancer is like becoming an alcoholic: you are by no means officially in the clear. Lifelong follow-up will be the standard. But so far, so superior...
In Minnesota, sometime in 1996...
I notice a small lump on my tailbone; right in the middle. Since I was nevertheless in chiropractic school, still young and dumb, I had one of the faculty chiropractors take a appear at it. He mentioned, "Oh, that's no big deal. It's an Epi-sacral Lipoma
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. It's a lump of fat on your butt."
Sounded good to me My Skirmish With Cancer - A Tale Of Dumb Luck, Manly Stupidity, Plus the Lessons That I Learned . I forgot about it, other than the fact that it looked silly.
Fast forward to Colorado
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, early September, 2004...
A second red line appears within the indicator window of the EPT home pregnancy test that my wife, Meredith just took. The second line means she's pregnant. A few days later
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, a follow-up blood test confirms that we are 9 months away from becoming parents.
Mid-September, 2004...
Meredith starts nagging me to get a physical. I haven't had one in about 15 years. Of course, as a jaded know-it-all chiropractor, I suspect that any medical medical doctor who gets a hold of me will immediately uncover some cause to make me take drugs. I resist. She persists.
She plays the, "what-if-we-have-this-baby-and-then-you-die" card. Finally, I agree to obtain a physical just so I don't have to hear about it any even more.
Mid-October 2004...
Our 6-week ultrasound. I'm surprised to see that little embryo Hyman, despite the fact that he looks like a shrimp, has a heartbeat. For the very first time, it seriously hits me that I'm going to be a father. Meredith is right My Skirmish With Cancer - A Tale Of Dumb Luck, Manly Stupidity, As well as the Lessons That I Learned , I don't want to develop into a father and then croak although the kid is young.
Late-October 2004...
I have my 1st physical with Ian Levenson, DO. He expresses surprise in the size from the lump on my tailbone. He suggests that we eliminate it. Frankly My Skirmish With Cancer - A Tale Of Dumb Luck, Manly Stupidity, And also the Lessons That I Learned , the lump had gotten fairly large more than the final 9 years. I figured that since it was made of fat, it grabbed a little bit of just about every pizza, every burger, and just about every scoop of ice cream that I'd thrown down my throat over the final 9 years.
Seriously, the lump was huge and looked ridiculous. It was time to eliminate it.
November 24, 2004...
The day just before Thanksgiving, I had a simple outpatient procedure at Dr. Levenson's surgical center. As soon as he opened it up, he said, "I don't know what this really is, but it truly is NOT a Lipoma." I told him, "If you feel comfortable proceeding, then just get rid of the damn thing."
Over the next few days, my wife and I joked that the lump was my un-developed twin, Herschel. (That honestly is a factor. You may possibly recall the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when Toula's aunt describes hers to Ian's parents.)
December 1, 2004...
Back in Dr. Levenson's office to obtain my stitches out, we got the shocking news. He walked right in, looked me right inside the eye and told me. "Swedish Hospital's pathology lab couldn't determine that factor, so they sent a sample to an expert at Emory University in Atlanta. It looks like is was a sarcoma - a cancer. You have to go see an oncologist."
You know, some consumers spend many money in therapy so they are able to stop living in denial about a variety of points. In this instance, denial was a superb thing. I immediately jumped head initial into denial. My official reaction may be summarized like this:
"If this were an aggressive cancer, I would have died 6 years ago. I'm fine."
While that seems easy sufficient to believe, when you're awake worrying inside the middle of the night, denial sounds an awful lot like bullsh*t.
December 2, 2004...
At Meredith's 16-week ultrasound, we uncover out that the baby is actually a boy.
As you might imagine, this was a strange couple of days. I find out that the lump on my butt was cancer, and locate out we're having a boy.
December 3, 2004...
I show up at Sky Ridge Hospital's Cancer Center. The waiting room is complete of people today fighting various kinds of cancer, and the reality of what's going on finally hits me. This cancer may perhaps have spread, and it could kill me. I've performed my research on the internet (something I don't suggest), so I know that sarcomas kill consumers. I'm scared.
My oncologist was Iona Hinshaw, head from the department. She spends about 20 minutes with me, tells me that I have to acquire an MRI, a CT scan, a bone scan, and then a have another surgery to eliminate a wider radius of tissue. She tells me if it spread to my lung, they'll have to remove parts of my lung. She asks if I cough a great deal.
I say "No, I do not cough quite a bit." This must be wonderful.
For some cause, Meredith objects and insists that I do cough a lot. We argue in front with the head of oncology at Sky Ridge. I have to say issues like, "I'm a mouth breather at night and therefore have phlegm within the mornings" to convince the physician that I in fact do not cough a whole lot. (I guess frequent coughing can be a sign that cancer is in the lungs.)
December 15, 2004...
I have my MRI. They want to scan everything from my neck to my thighs to look for any indication that the cancer has spread. This can be crunch time. 90 minutes http://symptomsofovariancancer.biz in the tube. Nothing to do but think and breathe. And yes, spending 90 minutes wide awake in an MRI tube was a form of torture, to say the least.
I
Hope for earlier ovarian cancer diagnosis
get to take a copy with the scans with me. I run household and read them. One can find thousands of pictures,
Valuable Suggestions for Increasing the Ovarian Cancer Survival Rates
but I can pretty significantly tell that no unusual masses are there. The lungs appear great. I start to feel like I'm going to make it.
December 16, 2004...
I get a CT scan. To this day, I nevertheless don't know why they did both an MRI and a CT, but they did. Again I took the films with me, and once again I saw nothing unusual. 2 days later, the radiologist's report agreed with me.
December 21, 2004...
I go to see Dr. Cynthia Kelley at Colorado Limb Consultants. She is an expert orthopedic surgeon who specializes in rare cancers and limb preservation. If I were cancer, I'd be afraid of her. She tells me that my initial surgery was not a correct cancer surgery, and I will therefore need a second surgery. (After I get my bone scan, of course.)
December 27, 2004...
I have my bone scan. It's standard, and kind of cool, actually. Surgery will go ahead on the 29th.
December 29, 2004...
I have surgery at PSL Hospital. Dr. Kelly performs a wide excision around my tailbone, removing a number of the Gluteus Maximus muscle, a whole lot of sacral fascia, and also the fat pad that protects the bone. All of these factors will be biopsied.
I have more than 100 stitches inside and out. Despite the doctor's instructions, I refuse to stay over night inside the hospital. There was just no way that I was going to let my pregnant wife go residence alone and worry about me. In fact, I also refused to become wheeled out of the hospital in a wheelchair. Four hours immediately after surgery, I walked to the back seat of my own car and tried not to throw up from the anesthesia.
New Year's Eve was subdued to say the least. A few days later I got word from the oncologist that the biopsies had been clean. That also meant no chemotherapy and no radiation. So just after two surgeries, numerous MRI's, CT's, bone scans, biopsies, and 6 weeks of worry, I was fine. Except for the giant crater in my lower back.
I went on to have the external stitches eliminate and start rehabbing myself, with all the assistance of some of my Russian Kettlebell friends. I'm nevertheless not completely 100% recovered, but all points considered, I've got no complaints.
And now, the rest in the story.
May 26, 2005...
Meredith checks in to Rose Hospital to have the baby. Since her blood pressure has been high throughout the pregnancy, the doctor has scheduled her for induction.
May 27, 2005...
After 17 hours of labor, the physician decides that Meredith needs a C-section. At 4:43 AM, Andrew Harris Hyman greets the world having a scream and immediately pees all more than the scale. He weighs 7 pounds, 9 ounces.
We spend a few days within the hospital, and take him house. As of this writing, he and Meredith are doing very nicely.
So what can you learn from this?
First of all, get a physical each year with a physician that you trust. Rather frankly, if Dr. Levenson hadn't removed that cancer from me, it would nevertheless be there. If it's been over a year since your final physical, call you doctor and get one particular. Many problems will be picked up in the early stage. Dr. Levenson is usually reached at 303.221.5400.
Second, get any lumps thoroughly evaluated by qualified providers. A chiropractor at my school's clinic dismissed my cancer as a "harmless Lipoma." He clearly was not qualified to make that diagnosis, and it could extremely quickly have killed me.
Third, a whole lot of people today get cancer. Although the experts still don't agree why that's, there's considerably they do agree on. The prevailing theory these days is that all of us are constantly fighting malignant alterations to cells in our bodies. Usually, your immune system can keep up and kill off cells that happen to be turning negative.
You really should minimize exposure to carcinogens, eat quality foods, work to lower stress, and get sleep. I'll have considerably far more to say about this inside the future. Once you get a cancer, you have to become checked for the rest of your life to see if it's coming back. I plan to make sure it does not.
Finally, when I was in that MRI tube worrying if my cancer had spread, I spent the majority of my time thinking about family, health, stuff I delight in, my unborn child, etc. Your family and your health are the two most crucial items you have. Make sure you take care of both of them 1st. They're even more necessary than your work, they are much more necessary than your money, they're additional vital than the crap on TV, etc. Do what you can to make sure that they know it.
The information contained in this write-up is for educational purposes only. Do not use this information for self-diagnosis or self-treatment. Have any symptoms evaluated by a licensed physician in your state. Dr. Hyman DOES NOT offer treatment for cancer. He just wanted to share his story.
My Skirmish With Cancer - A Tale Of Dumb Luck, Manly Stupidity, And The Lessons That I Learned
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