The Diagnosis

Looking back on it now, I guess I wasn't really paying too much attention, I knew I had felt a little tired for a while. I was dragging and would lie down on the bed and rest allot. I would get winded just walking up the stairs. With the type of cancer I have sometimes there may not be many symptoms, at least at the beginning. Then again there could be, things like; fever, itching, night sweats, weight lose and swollen glands, etc.). Lucky I was only tired, I didn't really notice the swollen gland in my neck. Besides, you know us men; we're not as in touch with our bodies as much as you ladies are. To be honest with you, it was my girl friend who commented on how tired I was.

It had been about 3 weeks since the biopsy. I was going back to the Doctors office (I will refer to him as Doctor “M”) every couple of days so the nurse could change my dressing. I was just trying to get my neck healed up. They never said anything was wrong so I figured I was in the clear. Then one day I received the call I mentioned in my previous blog, the call to come in for an office visit, to go over the results of the biopsy.

I arrived at Doctor “M”s office in late November 1997 a few days before Thanksgiving. I was a little pensive and allot anxious, thinking they would not make me come here if it was good news. There I was, sitting and wondering what he was going to tell me. I was waiting in the room for  Doctor “M” ,my Doctor was the definition of SLOW, and the waiting seemed to take forever. Then finally the door opened and in came Doctor “M”. He sat down and opened up his folder. He turned to me and said, "Steve, we got you biopsy back, it came back as malignant and it's Lymphoma, the good part it is not in your blood yet and it is contained inside the lymph node".  I just kind of noded ok with my head, and then I asked him "what the heck is Lymphoma?"  Doctor "M" said, "It's cancer of your blood Steve". I asked him "How the Hell did I get that?" We went on talking for a while and the bottom line is they didn't know then, and really don't know now what causes it. In the last 15 years I have done allot of research and I have my own ideas on how I think I got it. (that’s another discussion)

We had a lengthy conversation (I guess that’s why he was so slow) about the type of Cleaved Small Cell Diffuse Follicular Lymphoma that I had. Of course, I asked him all the super important questions that anyone would ask, right, "How long am I going to live?"  He explained the Lymphoma I had was the type that was considered a slow growing chronic type, that was the good news, the bad news was that there was no cure and it's 100% fatal (ooh boy).  Doctor “M” said "Well Steve, you should live a good 5 years". Whoopee!  Yikes, I was only 44, I wasn't even going to live long enough to make it to be 50 years old. Then he gave me the name of an Oncologist I should go see. I told him thanks, I mean what else are you going to say, and I left. 

I was in my car driving home and it took a while for it to sink in. I was thingking; how do I tell my family, my girlfriend, and my friends that I had cancer and only had 5 years to live. I started to get depressed.

More of this story in my next blog.............Steve