LIFE STORIES AT 65 - 5 YEARS LATER

FIVE YEARS!   Yeah 5 years.  5 years ago today, I went to the ER because I could not swallow, barely talk, and had a sore throat.   NO big deal I thought.  Just a sore throat, it will pass.  I had been talking a lot the night before.  I had read off several hundred names of our fallen heros, in the rain, snow, and cold.  OF COURSE it was just a sore throat.  NOPE.  THANK YOU JESUS you had a resident physician in the ER that thought just because I had a sore throat, but he could not see anything with his little light, he ought to do a CAT scan.  THANK YOU JESUS he found "something" strange that did not belong there.  THANK YOU JESUS for untold faith that I found out of NO WHERE.

5 years ago today started this whole journey that this blog has been based on.  5 years ago started a whole new journey in my life and the lives of my wife and daughter, and her husband.  What a journey its been.  God has been faithful to HIS word.  EVEN when I have not been totally faithful to HIM, HE has been totally faithful to me.  Its been a very humbling experience.

5 years ago, I had a resident physician tell me he "thought" I had cancer in my throat.  Now keep in mind, Ive NEVER smoked.  Tried it a couple of times but did not care at all for it.  Ive never done drugs either.  Ive been the "proverbial good boy" and yet here I was.  I refused to believe it.  I refused to accept it.  I wanted PROOF!  LOL.  They put me in the hospital for the night because I could not swallow, and they wanted to keep an eye on me.  HARD night.  Pokes, sticks, IV,  prods, BP checks, virtually NO sleep.  Then MORNING, texted my wonderful wife to bring me a cinnamon roll from my favorite donut shop.  YAY, she did and I was able to swallow, and able to eat it.  The IV apparently loosened up my throat enough to swallow.

A little past 830 or so, an "associate" of a well known ENT came in and said he had looked at the results of the CAT scan, and in "his" opinion I had squamous cell carcinoma on my larynx.  In other words "cancer"  Those are very hard words to swallow on a Sunday morning.  Not to mention hard to  swallow ANYTHING.  Once again there was this surge of FAITH from no where, and once again refused to believe it.   Sent out a FB message on my page, and asked for prayer, little did I know, but prayers went out for me AROUND THE WORLD.  People I did not know, people I did know. Family, friends, unknown friends, total strangers, praying for "me".  This was all a TOTALLY humbling experience, yet I was still refusing to believe it.

A few days went by and I had a meeting the the "real" ENT, the head of that department at St Louis University, and he said that "in his opinion" I had cancer on my larynx, and they could fix it with a "little surgery".   First of of all that is no "little surgery" and second of all, I flat out refused that notion,  Once again a RUSH of faith.  OH Ive known God pretty much my whole life, BUT Ive never needed that kind of faith before.  NEVER before was I faced with a life and death decision.  NEVER before was I faced with making these kind of decisions.  Lose my voice or rely on God to keep it.  I chose the later, and today, I have my voice.  I had NO surgery, except for the biopsy, which by the way confirmed that I did indeed have squamous cell carcinoma.  NOT beginning stage, but stage IV only because it had spread to a few lymph nodes.

I did not get the final diagnosis, until February 17 of 2012, but strangely even then I was not concerned.  I will write more about that at a later date.  When I got out of the hospital that Sunday, things were kind of a blur.  What was I going to do, tell my daughter, friends, etc.  Its quite a shock to be told you have in all likely hood, cancer.

I remember sitting in my car in the parking garage of the ENT office and just sitting there, crying like a baby.  It was raining, a cold January rain very common in STL that time of year.  Just bawling like a baby.  I called my wife.  She could barely understand me I was crying so hard.  Her words were, "we will get thru this".  She was absolutely correct.

To this day, 5 years later, I do not give that word any credence.  I always will use a small c, and rarely spell it out.  Cancer is NOT of God!  Its an evil disease.  I did the treatments as prescribed, chemo and radiation, 35 treatments of radiation to my head and neck area.  God was with me every step.  I did not have the severe burns that they said I would.  I did not have the swelling they said I would.  I did not have a feeding tube they said I would absolutely have to have.  I did not have a breathing tube they said I would need.  GOD protected me every step of the way.   Chemo was disgusting, but here again NOT as bad a predicted.

5 YEARS!  GOD IS FAITHFUL!