Cancer 20 Years Later

On the morning of February 19, 2004, I was driving to work. Just a few days prior I had gone through some scans of lymph nodes found swollen around my neck after coming home from a deployment in Afghanistan. I felt fine and I thought it may just be a reaction to stress or a sickness.

On that drive, I received a call that I had cancer.

Was I shocked? Yes and no. Yes, because, well, cancer. No, because both my brother and dad had Hodgkin’s and I felt as if it was now my turn. Somewhat of a right of passage.

On February 19, 2006, I proposed to my wife. She thought we were going there to celebrate life–being in complete remission from cancer, but I had other plans. Before I asked her that fateful question she read to me a beautiful message she wrote and we celebrated that day as a symbol of gratitude. Thinking back, once I decided to pop the question I could barely get the words out. I remember the tears in her eyes and her beautiful smile. We had made our very own special day to celebrate. A combination of two special events.

From that point on my diagnosis day would become more about celebrating life.

One child and two dogs later I received an email from someone who had just been diagnosed with the same cancer I went through: Hodgkin’s Lymphoma which I shared with my wife. She had to remind me that it’s been around 20 years since my last treatment which honestly caught me by surprise.

I never thought about all the time that went by and it’s truly bizarre in a way. I’ve never really been big on looking back, I usually only like to look forward.

But 20 years is a long time. In some ways, it feels like a lifetime ago. In others, I can still feel and taste the chemo in my veins. The constant nausea, pain, and doctor’s visits. The nine months of enduring.

I consider myself lucky. If my deployment had been longer or if I had put off getting checked out, I may not have had the opportunity to write this.

Purpose

I think there is a responsibility in all this. Like I said, I’m one of the lucky ones. I survived, but there are so many others who don’t. They fight and fight to no avail. They endure relapses, terminal complications, and other maladies that are impossible to recover from. They fought and they lost. They didn’t get to look ahead.

For some reason, I’m a survivor. I feel I have a responsibility to carry on and help where I can. One of my favorite things to experience is when someone messages me and they talk about how my story inspired them, gave them hope, or some just want advice on how to get through the darkness. I’m no expert or counselor but I like being an ear. I like to hear their stories, their hardships, and their frustrations. I try to answer every single email I get whether it’s about training, diet, or just offering some motivation.

I honestly don’t know if what I say and write about helps, but I can’t just let these messages go unanswered as they are truly special and help me along the way too.

I want others to know they’re not alone. I want others to be able to one day look back on 20 years of being alive and healthy in disbelief and pass on their story to help others one day.

The messages I get are truly inspirational.

Lessons

If I can look back and gather any amount of lessons learned I can quickly and with conviction come up with three that had significant impacts on not only my journey during treatment but also my life moving forward.

1. Reps
   A huge part of the treatment process can be seen as synonymous with weight training. Chemotherapy treatment is a repetitious endeavor. Week after week you have to show up, receive treatment, take other medications to combat the side effects, and then repeat again and again. Naturally, if you want to be as successful as possible (especially psychologically) you’ll need a hefty dose of patience to go along with it. It was a true lesson in trusting the process.
2. Humility
   Nothing will humble you like a proverbial sucker punch to the gut. I had to have several procedures done before treatment. One in particular was getting a bone marrow sample to see if any cancer cells snuck into my bones. It was humbling, to say the least. A giant needle was drilled into my pelvis and once they extracted a sample of marrow, it felt (at least I think) as close to being struck by lightning as I could imagine. We are not indestructible.
3. Empathy
   Showing up to treatment I was met by many other patients in a large circular room. We all had our own small area where family, friends, and belongings could go. Everyone in there seemed to have different types of cancer. Many I never heard of. After treatment, I would try my best to go about my business and find that even some of the simplest things were more challenging. Everything from counting change at checkout lines to driving were now things I needed to focus on more than before. The chemotherapy took its toll. I had a new appreciation for being empathetic toward others.

Thanks for reading about my reflection. I hope if you or someone you know is going through something similar, you can reach out and share your story with others. So, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.

Have a great day!

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