The atrium coffee shop at Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center is sunlit and relatively quiet. I’m on a break between scans to pinpoint newly diagnosed hyperparathyroidism.
It’s a long process. After getting injected with Technetium-99, I was led to waiting room to cool my heels for 30 minutes before being ushered back for the first round of scans.
Round one took 45 minutes of lying very still as a camera moved around my head and neck, snapping ”pictures” along the way. Every once in a while the machine would sound an alarm. My wide shoulders were in the way, even though my upper torso was wrapped tightly in black nylon secured by Velcro. It looked like Nori. I was human sushi.
Two more scans await. I’m told they last just 10 minutes. The wait in between each is about two hours. So I’m here for most of the day. Pondering the imponderable, the question that can never really be answered: would I be here getting these scans today if I had not been diagnosed with cancer 10 years ago?
My body has been through so much the last 10 years, some things bigger deals than others: a permanent colostomy, neuropathy in my feet, left ventricular hypertrophy, high blood pressure, heart failure, a scrotal cyst, non-pressure glaucoma, cavities (chemo is horrible for your teeth), a lung nodule, enlarged lymph nodes in my armpit, obstructive sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, low testosterone, and now hyperparathyroidism and Atrial Fibrillation. To treat it all, I take more medications than I ever imagined I would.
Thank God for good insurance. Seriously, my co-pay for colostomy supplies alone is not bad considering what I would have to pay if I were uninsured. I don’t know how people who don’t have insurance do it. I could go on about health equity all day.
In the end, I realize pondering my imponderable question is futile. The fact is, I had cancer. Treatment changed my body forever. While I can legitimately trace some of the items on my list to cancer, there are others that cannot be definitively traced back.
I realize, too, that this is my brain trying to work out the “everything happens for a reason“ paradox because there must be a reason. Something caused all of this to happen. If not cancer, then what?
Everything happens. There doesn’t have to be a reason. If there were a reason, would it matter now? Nope.
What matters is, I’m still here and I am facing this head on, just like I have faced everything else on the list above.
While there have been health issues, some pretty stellar things have happened in my world since cancer. I wrote a book. I jumped into cancer advocacy with both feet. I chased down Sen. Alexander at the airport to get an answer to a question about the Affordable Care Act. I had a conversation with actress Marcia Cross about buttholes. A professional golfer played in a PGA tournament in my honor. An artist in Austin is creating a piece based on my journey. And there is so much more.
At 52 it feels silly to say getting old isn’t for wimps, but I’m getting up there and it’s not. My buddy Stan has reminded me a couple of times lately that I’m not a spring chicken anymore. I have the metaphorical heart of a 30-year-old man, though, so there’s a lot of fight left in me.
And there is still so much to do and see. Battles to be won. People to help. Gratitude to share. Love to give.
I have always liked what Hunter S. Thompson said: ”Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely and in a pretty well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ’Wow, what a ride!’”
May that come to pass for all of us.
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