Tuesday: February 21, 2012

I walked out of of the moon-beam chamber, a free parking ticket in hand. What a bargain. They're just giving stuff away at the Clinic.

Renee, the very pregnant radiation tech, smiled at me and said, “The tumor is pretty much gone.”

The techs working The Big Machine get an advance look at how treatment is progressing. A fellow Phish fan, Renee has been with me from the start of radiation.

“They might be able to cut short your treatment,” she added optimistically.

That's not likely, I said, and explained how the existence of the non-small cell cancer meant Dr. Greskovich would keep blasting away.

As I normally do, I stopped by the coffee machine on my way out to get a cup of something labeled “cafe mocha.” It tastes more like hot chocolate, but it's warm and sweet and free and is my reward for being the target of 1.21 gigawatts each day.
 

I look forward to the day when I never see that machine again.

A woman sat in a wheelchair near the coffee machine, IV bags hanging from a pole. She was in obvious distress. I heard a nurse tell her in a sympathetic voice that someone would be coming for her soon.

I got my coffee and decided to see if I could help.

“Hey, I know it's hard,” I said to her quietly. “ Cancer sucks.”

I told her I’d just gotten out of Clinic the week before. She mumbled something about “the size of a tennis ball,” and said she had been hospitalized for the last two weeks. I discovered the source of her distress: two small children laughing and playing in the waiting area. I understood. Laughter can be painful.
 We spoke quietly for another minute before an attendant arrived to take her away. She thanked me and extended her arms. She needed powerful medicine -- a hug -- which I was more than happy to supply. In a place that spends billions dispensing high-tech treatment, sometimes the best medicine is  the human touch.

I'm glad I could help her in some small way. I felt less like a "victim." I began treatment just over a month ago for a disease that, depending on who is keeping score, kills between 72 and 83 percent of the people who get it.

A couple hours later, sitting in my living room, snowflakes harmlessly floating past our windows, I'm scared. I might in fact be "cured" of lung cancer, but it hasn't dissolved the fear inside me.

A week from tomorrow I have another PET scan, a diagnostic test where you are injected with a radioactive sugar solution and then slid into a chamber that will tell the doctors whether any cancer cells remain inside of me.

I've done everything I can to make sure the outcome is positive, that perhaps I will be one of those folks who kick lung cancer to the curb and go on to live a long, productive life.

While cautious optimism is in order, Mary Lou assured me that it's normal to remain afraid. I'm not expecting anyone to tell me I'm cured quite yet. But I also can't shake the fearful prospect of being told the cancer has returned or has spread elsewhere.

As I type this, Jerry Garcia's voice flows through through my headphones. I'm listening to a download from a Grateful Dead show I attended at the Richfield Coliseum on March 14, 1993. Jerry was, at least for him, in great voice that night. It was the best – and last – of the half-dozen Dead shows I had the privilege to attend.
 

Jerry is singing "Touch of Grey," which I've adopted as my anthem. His voice, ravaged by drugs and cigarettes, sends stinging tears down my chemo-smoothed cheeks.

I will get by. I will get by.

I will survive.

Friday: February 17, 2012 (Part Two)

I tried to fill the time as best I could but grew impatient as I sat on my hospital bed awaiting my final instructions and my departure from the Clinic.

Finally, just after 3 p.m., they freed me. The nurses allowed me to walk on my own, sans wheelchair, to the hospital lobby to wait for a friend of Mary Lou's to pick me up.

I found the ride down the elevator discomforting. I started to feel worse when I sat in a chair in the cavernous atrium. My chest felt tight and it became difficult to breathe.

I'm not having a heart attack? The nurses were concerned earlier when, still attached to the monitor, my heart rate spiked as I dressed for the trip home. I assured them I was fine. Now? I'm not so sure.

I felt frightened. My hospital room had become my bright, warm and safe place. It was time to return to the big bad world and I wasn't sure I was ready.

  

Mary Lou’s friend pulled her car to the curb. I reminded myself to breathe and got in.

  

Heavy traffic on Euclid Avenue made for slow going. The conversation turned to levels of medical care. As the wife of a doctor, she said she said she receives more attentive treatment. She laughed at my assertion that I'd been getting the same care as everyone else even though the doctors and nurses knew I was writing about my experience and would be making a film as well.

   

This is a touchy and strange subject for me, the journalist.  Ethically and morally, a journalist cannot accept anything that someone else is not entitled to. I refuse to believe that the folks at the Clinic treated me any differently because I'm a reporter. Everyone, from the surgeons to the folks who cleaned my room (and didn't know who the hell I was), struck me as genuinely kind and compassionate people.

It was not until later that I realized I should have the woman this question: Does your husband treat patients differently because of who they are?

      

I concede that medicine is not rationed fairly. There are winners and losers. When I told a nurse I was trying to be the most compliant patient ever, she said: “Not everyone can afford to be compliant.”

Adequate medical insurance has given me a chance. Who knows what kind of bill the Clinic will create for this past week? Big money, I'm certain. Yet Mary Lou and I will be obligated to pay a few thousand dollars at most.

  

If I were living in Kazakhstan or Nicaragua or some other Third World backwater, my disease would be a guaranteed death sentence. Here I have a chance.

Life is not fair and there's not any fucking thing I can do about it, so give me all of that expensive medicine and make me well. Make me well. 

Friday: February 17, 2012 (Part One)

A wintry blue sky crowns my view to the outside world. A jet slips past the large picture window, destination unknown. I feel warm and snug in this womb my soft hospital bed has become.

My destination today is home. Tomorrow? Who knows. I'm learning that uncertainty is our lone guarantee.

I feel buoyant. I even managed to sing a few bars to Pat, the receptionist at radiation.

“Where is love? Does it fall from skies above? Is it underneath the willow tree that I've been thinking of?”

I've slept well. The walk to and from radiation oncology this morning caused little pain. Three days out from surgery, my body is mending. The clots are gone. The doctors say the tumor is nearly destroyed.

Mary Lou stopped by with a cup of strong coffee and a kiss to brace me. Life is good. I have plans and they seem to make sense.

Yet, despite all of this hope and optimism, I remain wistful. As much as I wish to be strong, I feel weakness tugging hard at the margins of my existence.

I know that this, too, shall pass. Should it be God's will, my life will be absorbed again someday by the mundane and pedestrian.

You see, I've grown tired of contemplating the great existential questions. Healing's true gift will be leaving behind the drama and urgency of the last two months.

I want a life where the ordinary is just that. Ordinary.

Thursday: February 16, 2012

I sit here typing on my laptop from my hospital bed. The fuzzy, post-surgery high has begun to recede. I feel some pain, as I should.

There are two impressive scars on my leg, one about 4 inches long on my calf, the other about 2 inches long on my ankle. The doctors want me up and walking as much as possible. It hurts, but it's manageable. They give me Percocet when I need it.

They also have given me a new weapon to stop the clots, a byproduct of chemo and cancer, from returning. It's called Lovenox, which I must inject twice a day into my belly much like a diabetic shoots insulin.

I just gave myself my third injection as Tiffany the nurse watched approvingly at my technique. (Side note: Virtually every nurse on my floor, regardless of age, is hot, Tiffany included. Good job, Clinic. No doubt part of its overall healing strategies.)

Yesterday, a social worker from the Clinic rushed into my room and asked what health insurance I have. I told her and she left. She returned later with a look of relief on her face and said everything was fine, that I could use Lovenox.

A nurse in my room told me later what the fuss was about. Lovenox costs around $100 an injection. I would be giving myself two shots a day for at least the next six months. I'll be paying my normal amount for a month's supply of drugs -- $15. Retail? It adds up to around $6,000 a month.

I'm waiting on breakfast and someone to push to me to radiation. My buddy Mike is bringing lunch that we'll eat in my room. I'm not sure what we'll eat yet, but whatever he decides, it will be 1,000 times better than the slop the Clinic serves. It's amazing that one of the world's great medical facilities would have such crappy food.

And, if all goes as planned, I'm gonna get sprung tomorrow.

This week is just a speed bump. Belly shots? Gimme a dozen. Clots? I'll cut 'em out with a butta knife.

I'm feeling like the Cowardly Lion right now, full of bravado. I just hope Dorothy decides not to slap me.

Is my nose bleeding?

Tuesday: February 14, 2012 (Part Three)

It took awhile to clear the anesthetic haze. Mary Lou arrived in the recovery room after being debriefed by Dr. Clair. The attendants finally pushed me back to my room with a morphine drip and a button to push for an extra kick of dilaudid.

I tried to get settled. My room is nice. It's in a new wing of the hospital, a building that, from the outside, has always reminded me of the Wynn casino in Las Vegas. With its big screen television and attractive wood molding, the room would be reminiscent of a hotel suite were it not for the hospital bed and medical equipment.

Maybe this is how Howard Hughes lived when he holed up in the Desert Inn all those months. I checked, but did not find, any television channels playing “Ice Station Zebra.” Nor did I make a bid to buy the Clinic. I knew beforehand it was not for sale.

It did not take long for the pain-numbing stuff they gave me in surgery to wear off. The dilaudid button got pressed ... repeatedly. The pain had arrived and my life began to unravel, making Mark a most unpleasant person. A four-hour surgery will do that to you, I guess.

The drugs, thankfully, sent me drifting in and out of sleep. But I made it clear to doctors and nurses and anyone else within earshot that skipping radiation was not an option. They said they would make arrangements to get me there and they did. They put me in a gurney and wheeled me through a maze of corridors and elevators and let the Big Machine do its tricks.

Back in my room, my head full of strong drugs, I slept as best I could.

This crisis, which I'm told was more serious than originally thought, appears to have passed.  The guilt has not. I have no one to blame for this but myself.

Good job, Mark.

Tuesday: February 14, 2012 (Part Two).

The nurse woke me around 5:30 a.m. Within a half hour, the room was a beehive of activity as various folks prepared me for the trip to surgery. Mary Lou and Lynn, my videographer, joined the scrum. Lynn would be taking her cameras into the operating room to record the proceedings.

Yesterday, the doctors had discovered a blood clot in an artery in my left leg and decided that it need to be removed.

I signed documents acknowledging all of the attendant risks, was placed on a gurney and wheeled down various hallways and an elevator that carried me down to the surgical suite. I was struck by the long row of white medical coats hanging in one of the hallways. Even at this early hour, the place appeared busy. Mary Lou gave me a kiss and I was wheeled into the OR, a sparse room much larger than I expected.

Nurses deftly transferred me from the gurney to the narrow operating table. The anesthesiologist sitting behind injected something into my IV line while someone else hooked the prongs of an oxygen line to my nostrils.

Dr. Daniel Clair appeared at my side. I've come to think of Dr. Clair as another sign of grace. I might have a potentially fatal complication to go along with my potentially fatal disease, but I also have one of the world's top vascular surgeons working on me.

But nothing is ever easy. Dr. Clair looked down at me and gave me an unwelcome surprise.

“I'm not sure I'm going to be able to save your big toe,” he said.

That was not what I expected to hear. He explained that he would be breaking up the clot, but there were no guarantees that he could remove all of the material, which would then make a beeline for my big toe. Were the gunk it to settle there, blood flow would be restricted and the toe would become gangrenous and die.
 I reacted with clearly false bravado.

“Don't worry about it,” I said. “I need the big toe on my right foot more than the left one for my golf swing.”

I didn't have time to fret. Seconds later, someone gently placed a rubber mask over my nose and mouth and darkness fell. More than four hours later, I woke up in a small recovery room.

"Do I have all of my toes?" I asked a nurse.

"Yes," she answered, perplexed by the question.

Lynn, who videotaped the entire surgery, later provided the play-by-play. Dr. Clair and his team were chagrined to learn that I did not have a blood clot. I had two blood clots. They removed the first one in the meat of my left calf with relative ease. She said it squirted as if a small balloon had been burst.

The second clot proved far tougher to extract. She said Clair and his team took multiple X-rays of my leg and in between snaps would gather around me and employ various tools to get at the clot in my ankle. She said Dr. Clair appeared frustrated at times. He and his assistants spoke tersely in mostly one and two-word sentences. Finally, to their relief, they managed to break up and vacuum out the clot.

A two-hour procedure took twice as long as scheduled. Dr. Clair rushed out of the OR and sprinted down the hall, Lynn said. I apparently had made him late for his next appointment.

Later, when I asked how the procedure went, Dr. Clair said: “You were a tough case.”

Tuesday: February 14, 2012 (Part One)

Valentine's Day greetings from Room J81-6 of the Miller Pavilion at the Cleveland Clinic. I'll be playing here all week. Please remember to tip your nurses and phlebotomists.

Let me explain. Yesterday morning, I could barely walk the quarter-mile from the parking garage to the radiation oncology clinic. My left ankle felt as if it were broken, the pain severe.

The radiation techs alerted the medical staff when they saw how distressed I appeared  found myself being examined by young Dr. Hearn after treatment. I provided him with a self-diagnosis of neuropathy. He looked me over and respectfully disagreed.

“I think you have a blood clot,” he said.

He set up an ultrasound appointment for early afternoon. Thankfully, Mary Lou had the day off and drove me to the appointment. The ladies spent several hours giving me various tests using sets of inflatable cuffs. Results?

Harvard Medical School 1, Lakeland Community College 0. I had a blood clot.

In the lobby downstairs, Mary Lou got me into a wheelchair, which was lifted into a van and driven several blocks to the emergency room. From there, I would be admitted into the hospital proper.
 The ER was packed. One middle-aged woman sat in a wheelchair and loudly kvetched to her mother on her cell phone about how she had been waiting for hours and had been thoroughly neglected.

We waited less than five minutes before a door opened and a nurse called my name. Mary Lou pushed me inside and closed the door. I asked why I had been called so quickly.

“Blood clots put you at the top of the list,” the nurse said.

A short time later they had me in a bed in one of the examination rooms where an ER doc gave me the once over. Then a tall and stunningly beautiful young woman entered the room. My guess? An Egyptian princess posing as a resident in the Clinic's vascular surgery department.

She asked some questions and examined my leg and was soon joined by the big boss, Dr. Daniel Clair, and a phalanx of residents.
 Dr. Clair greeted me, looked at the leg and gave his crisp assessment. He needed to get me into surgery first thing in the morning and remove the clot.

Sunday: February 12, 2012

This was supposed to be a good day.

The most strenuous item on the agenda was a simple Sunday supper of seared wild salmon, sauteed kale, roasted asparagus and Mary Lou's new favorite, risotto with truffle oil and chives.

It's her birthday weekend, and last night we celebrated with a wonderful dinner at Sarava, the Brazilian restaurant at Shaker Square.

Lepers made an appearance at Mass this morning. In Leviticus, the unclean are told to shave their heads and rend their garments and announce to the world they are diseased. I'm not into tearing my clothes, but I've gotten the other two things accomplished.

My good day, however, has been marred by the appearance of a new side effect -- neuropathy. Dr. Verma the oncologist had warned me this could happen. It started with a tingling in my left toes and foot, which then turned number. It has further developed into something painful.
 It began last night walking into the restaurant. I attributed whatever was happening to the extreme cold. The pain reappeared walking in and out of church this morning and then during a trip to Whole Foods. It reached a crescendo as I cooked dinner. I could not get the food on the table fast enough. 

Now, even as I sit resting in my recliner after dinner, the pain persists. It's a worrisome development.

Saturday: February 11, 2012

Kay's call this morning shook me. Her brother-in-law, Dick, had been diagnosed with some kind of interstitial lung disease and will need a transplant in the next few years. Dick, who I've played some golf with in Bowling Green, didn't smoke.

I had never heard of interstitial and Goggled it. Unfortunately, I read some of the lung cancer portion of the annotation. I wish I had not. My refusal to do research is not an act of denial but of survival.

Lung cancer is grim. I cannot escape it. But working myself into a lather with a full immersion into the details of my disease won't save me. I will not be able to concoct any cures. I must rely on faith and medicine for that.

I stopped by the nursing home before lunch and found Dad upstairs in the art area. Volunteers from Case Western Reserve University were there helping residents work on projects.

My father contentedly stenciled something on the front of a card. The Case kids impressed. We kibitzed about the Browns and smart phones and music. They seemed happy to be there.

I sat with Dad and his tablemates at lunch. They have their routines, and I try to help them without getting in the way. I like this place, which is the Ritz of nursing homes. Money is no concern. Dad is nearly broke. The government will be picking up the tab soon. I would strenuously argue that he deserves every dime of that help.

Despite the pleasant visit, I left angry and frustrated with the world. Yes, I endured yet another restless night. But something deeper gnawed at me. Something more primal.

Fucking nicotine

I wanted it. I needed it. Now. Quitting smoking had not been as horrific as I had always imagined, but it had had its moments. This was one. I craved a damn cigarette.

I prayed aloud on my way to Judson; I prayed aloud on my way home from Judson and prayed in between stops at the gas station where I used to buy cigarettes and the drug store where I used to buy cigarettes.

My head nearly imploded when drifting snow prevented me from getting up the driveway.

Oh, God. I really do need help.

This is just a bad day, I keep telling myself. It's just a bad day. It's going to get better.

Thursday: Feburary 9, 2012

I cobbled together three or four hours of sleep and got to the Clinic in time to sit with Didi and pray. Gratefully, she took charge. Her words proved strong and powerful.

The connections I have made are keeping me oriented as I flail about in this whirlwind. Complete strangers have become brothers and sisters in arms, something for which I'm grateful.
 The well-guarded me has become more open and vulnerable. There's a new sense of self. The static of a confused life has slowly being tuned to a channel I can hear.

I scrolled through my iPod and found my musical selection for radiation: U2's “Miracle Drug.”

The songs are in your eyes
I see them when you smile
I've seen enough I'm not giving up
On a miracle drug

I met with nurse Jeannie and the doctors for my weekly consultation. Jeannie was pleased that I weighed in at 230. I've actually gained weight, which she said typically does not occur.
 

We talked alone for a few minutes. With Jeannie, the filters disappear. Emotion push to the surface. She handed me a small stack of gauze pads to dry my eyes.

“They're sturdier than tissues,” she said with a smile.

Drs. Hearn and Greskovich made their weekly appearance. Their first question is always, “How do you feel?” The answer today was that the effects of treatment have begun making unwanted cameos.

I told them that my manic energy has receded. Naps are no longer an option but are a requirement. There's a cough and a persistent annoying ache in my chest at the tumor sight. My tale of woe did not impress.

Thursday also is  my designated day to go to the office before lunch with Mike. I met for a few minutes with the editor to who has been assigned to work with me on this story/project/journal. It seemed to go well.

I assumed everyone in the office knew of my lung cancer. I found out otherwise after some of our colleagues organized a collection to buy Mary Lou and I a gift certificate from a restaurant delivery service. I began receiving wonderfully sweet e-mails from colleagues who had not heard.

Cancer has given me permission to make peace with a few folks in the office who didn't deserve my coldness. My eyes have been opened to how petty and mean I have been. And I hope they forgive me. Saying, "I'm sorry," has never been easy.

Wednesday: February 8, 2012

I thought I'd had arrived at the Clinic in time this morning to spend a few minutes with Didi, But as I emerged from the elevator, she and her husband, Lawrence, were waiting to step inside.

Didi handed me a small box. Inside was an angel medallion inscribed with the words “Give me strength.”

I thanked her and said I'll make sure I arrive earlier tomorrow. Lawrence's last day of treatment is Friday and our paths won't likely cross after that. They are preparing to move to Texas in a couple weeks.

Radiation took mere minutes. It is a strange, sterile and painless process. I've become better at anticipating what The Big Machine is doing and when treatment is over.

The trip to Parma for Day 3 of Round 2 went quickly. It was as if Obama was in town and had cleared the freeway given the lack of traffic.

Joanne arrived at the infusion center a bit after me. She looked good. We said a short prayer praising the day and got down to the business of better living through potentially deadly science.

I smiled to myself and considered the emotional roller coaster I've been on. It's okay. Cancer has been suffused with good and bad, yin and yang. Very strange.

My nurse today was Cindy. My blood pressure was up quite a bit. Cindy says she has that effect on people. She also blamed the steroids, which might also explain the mood swings. After tossing down an Emend, the (very expensive) anti-nausea med, I waited for a little while for my single bag of chemo drugs.

Cindy and I spent a few minutes talking. She knows well my predicted outcome. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. But she said 15 years of oncology nursing has taught her this: Not only can she help people live longer, she can help them fully recover.

I told her that learning about this cell mutation business had been a rude slap in the face that continued to sting.

Cindy didn't try to dance around that regrettable fact, but reminded me that numbers are just that. Regardless of whether we have a bad disease or not, we must concentrate on each and every day of our lives, she said.

That concept, living day-to-day, has been appearing in my life with startling frequency. There must be something to it.

I've stopped listening to my car radio. I've chosen alternative programming – the Mark and God Hour. It's a time when I can ask God to help people I know and care for and, with increasing frequently, myself. I'm becoming more comfortable praying for me. Initially, it struck me as unseemly, almost craven.

More soulful and prayerful minds have convinced me otherwise. God forgives me and I don't have a choice in the matter.

I'm most comfortable thanking God for giving me this day. It's wonderful to make plans, to anticipate. But the real work must be the here and now. In this moment, it's the beauty of the swirls and curves created by ink against paper.

I believe God has given me a small gift, the ability to put one word in front of the other. This is my attempt not to squander that gift.

Ultimately, this is not about the messenger. It's the message.

I believe I have one. I hope I truly learn what that message is.

Tuesday: February 7, 2012

I’m resting comfortably in my recliner as Day 2 of my second round of chemotherapy gets under way.

Unlike after the first day of Round One, I’ve gotten a few hours of sleep with Xanax pushing me into unconsciousness around 2 a.m.

I felt well enough to drive myself to radiation and chemotherapy. Technical issues caused a delay in radiation.  The problem? A balky computer mouse, the technicians said.

Didi was waiting for Lawrence, which gave us another chance to chat and to hold hands and pray for the day – that day – that God had given us. It felt good. It felt right.

She also asked me a surprising question.

“Are you terminal?”

“Semi,” I replied.

She nodded her head and did not seek further explanation. I think she understood. The question did not bother me. Two colleagues had tried to ask a similar question, but it seemed more out of morbid curiosity than concern for my well-being.

So, what does “semi” mean? In my mind, it means I might survive this disease but chances are I won't. 

I want desperately to be an outlier, to take advantage of the Gillispie gene pool and live another 40 or 50 years. My Uncle Dana died at the age of 97 when his body finally wore out. My father is 92 and, although he is physically limited in what he can do, he is not going anywhere soon.

Both men were Marines and survived some some of the grimmest of fighting in the Pacific during World War II. Why the hell can't I survive this?

“Semi.”

The delays at the Clinic made me a half hour late for chemo. Joanne was there. She wore an attractive hat and her color was much better than yesterday's ashen hue. She had wrapped herself in a blanket and awaited the medicine that might keep her alive. That's all she wanted. A chance.

Joanne cried and practically begged for treatment yesterday after the results of a blood test caused concern. Her chemo regimen is the Hail Mary that oncologists throw toward after the stuff I'm getting refuses to do its job.

It rarely works, but she doesn't care. She wants a chance.

Joanne shushed me when I tried to tell her about the darkness I have seen.

“Don't think about that,” she said.

Joanne finished treatment and stopped by my recliner on the way out. “You remember what I told you,” she admonished.

I nodded. I need Joanne. I need her strength. I need her blessings. This is not a fight I can win alone.

Monday: February 6, 2012

I anticipated my second round of chemotherapy with no small amount of anxiety. I had spent the first round sleepless and in pain, an experience I did not want to repeat.

It appears that I am tolerating the toxic stew a bit better today, which began at dawn with radiation followed by 10 hours at the infusion center.

I made an emergency stop at the office on the way home. The drug they had given me to clear my kidneys had not stopped working. I needed to use the bathroom in a hurry.

But I also wanted to tell my editor in person that Dr. Verma, the oncologist, is considering adding two rounds of chemo, which would extend treatment by six weeks. When I asked the doctor why, he nonchalantly answered that four to six weeks is standard, but he hadn't quite decided what would be  appropriate for me.

My editor dismissed my concerns about missing more work. He has allowed me to make treatment and this journal “work” while artfully fending off pesky inquiries from Human Resources. Given how overwhelmed I have been, his kindness has been a great gift.

“Look, you could have taken all this time off as disability, but you've chosen to work and that's great,” he said.

I chatted briefly with one his bosses and we joked about why I had stopped in the office so late. He mockingly thanked me for choosing the PD over a fast food restaurant or gas station. He also apologized for being enthused about my story. I told him that's okay.

It's not every day that a newspaper has one of their own willing to chronicle treatment for a disease that he might not survive. Horrible subject matter, but a pretty good story.

Ironically, when I had my knee replaced three years ago, I considered writing about it but ultimately begged off. It seemed too personal, too invasive to air in public.

Journalism is such a strange and confounding business. I did not find journalism. It found me. I snagged my first paying newspaper gig the summer before my senior year of high school. Except for four years in the Army, I've remained in the business ever since.

I believe I've always had the requisite curiosity it takes to be a good newspaper man, But I've had to overcome a strange shyness and reluctance to invade people's privacy. In my nascent days as a police beat reporter, I found it disturbing and difficult to knock on strangers' doors late at night and ask if someone would talk to me about a child who had just been killed in a drive-by.

Eventually, I developed a patter that got me in the door. Exploitive? Yeah. But, for better or worse, that's what newspaper men and women have always done and will continue to do. We will show up on your worse day and ask you annoying questions.

After I had left the police beat, editors occasionally sent me, instead of my replacements, to interview grieving parents of dead children. I expressed my unhappiness when given those assignments, but completed them nonetheless.

Now, it's my turn to play the role of Susie or Artwon or Billy or Shanika. But this time, I'm interviewing myself. It's not pleasant, but it's my job.

Sunday: February 5, 2012

I woke up this Super Bowl Sunday morning feeling wrung out despite one of the longer stretches of sleep I've had in awhile. I did manage to drag myself to 7:30 Mass. Father B., who presides over the daily 6:45, sat a couple rows in front of me.

The first reading came from the Book of Job. Befitting Job, it was a grim passage about how our time on Earth basically sucks.

The priest acknowledged during his sermon that Job's message was not uplifting. But he brought it around to make an interesting point.

He said that in a class taught by a Lutheran minister years ago, the minister had no explanation for why people suffer.

"But when we do," the minister said. "God weeps for us."

I found comfort in that message.

We sang “Amazing Grace” during communion, a hymn I had never recalled hearing in a Catholic church, and joined in with gusto.

I walked over to the annual pancake breakfast after Mass. I sat at an empty table in the school gym but was soon joined by a man in his 60s. He said he is a semi-retired accountant from the Cleveland Clinic and that he is an active volunteer with Hope Lodge, a charity that provides free housing for people from out of town who come to Cleveland for cancer treatment.

Mass and a pleasant breakfast brightened my spirits. But once I got home and sat down with my laptop, I quickly became annoyed at the hairs dropping onto my shirt.

Nearly three weeks after the start of chemo, hair loss had arrived in earnest. My already trimmed scalp had become patchy. My eyebrows had thinned and hair had begun to escape from other parts of my body as well.

I had planned to wait a couple days to get my head shaved, but my mangy look and irritating itchiness drove me to action. I went out in search of a barber. I figured the only place open on a Sunday afternoon would be the franchise place not far from the house.

Two women were at work there, cutting the hair of adorable blond twin girls. A bunch of people sat waiting their turn. Patience is not one of my virtues and I asked if there was another shop nearby. One of the stylists told me to try another location not far away.

En route, I passed a barbershop that seemed to have activity inside. I stopped and went in. I was greeted by the barber working the first chair who I assumed was the owner. Two other barbers were hard at work while customers kibitzed in the empty chairs and a few sat in the waiting area.

My entrance drew curious, but by no means hostile, looks. I had stumbled upon a black barber shop. The owner asked if I only wanted a haircut, which I said I did. (I'm not sure what else he thought I might have wanted.)

While I haven't seen “Barbershop,” I'm culturally aware enough to know that for African-American men, barber shops are sanctuaries, a place where they can express themselves with impunity. I was an outsider, but I wanted my head shaved, and I hoped they would accommodate me.

I had a bit of a wait, but it gave me an opportunity to observe. My barbershop near downtown serves men of all races. Quality haircuts are delivered in an efficient, assembly line-like fashion.

At DeFranco's, cutting hair appears to be as much art as science. Heads are sculpted with a mix of complicated procedures and equipment. Impressive stuff, really.

I got the full-service treatment: trim with the shaver; a scalp massage using a hot, damp towel; a careful shave using a straight razor; application of an astringent; another hot wet towel; application of a balm. I didn't time him, but I'm sure it took a half-hour.

Cost? A surprising bargain at $15. Expecting this to cost twice as much. I tipped him another $15. He handed me his card and said to come back anytime.

Surprisingly, I like this new look. Combined with my new glasses, I vainly admit my shaved head is … stylish. It just took cancer to figure that out.

I'd rather have my hair, though, thin as it might have been. I did not mind being a balding 50-something guy without cancer. Did not mind at all.

Friday: February 3, 2012

I couldn't help but chuckle when I learned this morning's Mass would be said in honor St. Blaise, the patron saint of throat illnesses. As a child, I can remember the priest touching my neck with the two crossed candles that is the blessing of the throat.

St. Blaise, so the story goes, saved a boy with a fish bone stuck in his throat in Armenia during the Fourth Century. My throat has been feeling better, but some St. Blaise mojo couldn't hurt.

Later, when I arrived at the Clinic, Didi sat in the small alcove that served as the waiting room for patients using my Big Machine. We talked and prayed for a bit.

As we sat, a woman, someone with her and several technicians walked over to a bell attached to the wall. Tradition calls for radiation patients to ring it on their last day of treatment and to recite a poem. I guessed she had some kind of throat-related cancer given how badly her neck was swollen. I hoped St. Blaise would intercede on her behalf.

The techs had a few issues lining me up with The Big Machine this morning and, for the first time, had to come back into the room to make further adjustments.

“I'm not sure what's going on,” Renee explained. “It happens sometimes.”

I headed to a poker tournament Friday evening. Beforehand, a group of us stopped at the popular hot dog joint, Happy Dog.

As we sat waiting for our food, a short, muscular man with an intense look on his face walked to our table and stopped. He looked at the four of us and then fixed his gaze on me. He thrust out his hand toward me, which I shook, and then wordlessly walked away.

My friends asked if I knew him. I did not. None of us was quite sure what had just occurred.

For what it's worth, Lynn thinks I’ve developed a “presence.” So does Mary Lou. She said she has told the children that I've been “touched by God.”

When I asked her what she meant, she didn’t answer.

Sleep did not come easily after I made it home from poker. I floated in a dreamlike state where I had convinced myself the cancer was not real and that I would get up in the morning and everything would be fine.

I rarely remember my dreams. But shortly before my diagnosis, for the first time in a long time, I had to awaken myself from a dream gone horribly bad. I had helped kill someone and, after trying to cover it up, was about to be exposed.

Even after rousing myself back to consciousness, the vividness lingered.

I have been exposed. And none of it is a dream.

Thursday: Feb. 2, 2012

I woke up wondering what the groundhog of my soul would reveal: Early spring or a long, dreary and fearsome winter.

Either way, it had not been a good night. The sore throat that began yesterday had sharpened its blades. Not even mother's little helper, Xanax, provided more than a few hours of needed sleep.

I managed a breakfast of coffee and yogurt and hauled myself to the bathroom to shower and shave. I trimmed my goatee, knowing its shelf life was limited. Last night, I tugged at my chin and pulled out an impressive amount of hair. Hamlet came to mind:

Am I a coward? Who calls me villain?

Breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?

Tweaks me by the nose? Gives me the lie i' th' throat

As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?

That one works on a bunch of levels.

I arrived a few minutes early for my 8:20 radiation appointment. For the second day in a row, a woman sat and waited for her husband to emerge from treatment. We said hello to each other and, without much urging, her story tumbled out.

Didi's husband, Lawrence, is undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. Her father-in-law is dying of pancreatic cancer, a sister has breast cancer and she and her family have been living in a hotel for weeks because their house was badly damaged in a flood. My throat no longer hurt very much.

When Lynn showed up with her camera equipment, Didi was impressed.

“You a celebrity?” she asked.

I chuckled. “No. Just a reporter.” I replied and explained what we were making a documentary.

Didi and I connected. We talked about God and prayer, something I find myself doing often these days. I'm scheduled for 8:20 tomorrow and four days next week, so I'm assuming we will talk some more.

I met with Jeannie the nurse after treatment. I weighed in at 222, about where I was when I started. This would be my first chance to interrogate Dr. Greskovich about the change in radiation plan from three weeks to eight weeks.

He really didn't have much of an explanation beyond wanting to make sure he wiped out all the stubborn non-small tumor cells, which don't necessarily respond to radiation the same way small cells do. Fine. If it's eight weeks he wants, it's eight weeks he gets.

Greskovich pulled up a series of complicated-looking images on the computer with spline lines of various colors that showed how the moon beams were applied. I nodded my head stupidly, pretending that I understood.

One set of images, however, connected. He showed me the tumor from a scan taken yesterday and compared it with one taken before treatment began. The tumor has begun to shrink.

Neither Dr. Greskovich nor Dr. Hearn could do anything about my sore throat, however. Medical science has its limitations. Try gargling with salt water, they suggested. One step ahead of them, I had already made an appointment for this afternoon to see someone at Kaiser about my throat.

After the Clinic, I spent a little time at the PD taking care of business and hooked up with Mike McIntyre for our Thursday bowl of steaming pho. I told him about my meeting with Father S. and how the faithful Jesuit had already pointed me toward service. He wants me to help kids at the church's school to write.

That will have to wait. Kids are too germy for someone with a badly compromised immune system. Chemotherapy knocks both white and red blood cell levels down to worrisome levels.

At the Kaiser clinic, a very nice physician's assistant ordered a throat culture and told me I likely had been exposed to one of the numerous viruses attacking folks this winter.

“Try gargling with salt water,” he said. Once again, modern science fails to deliver..

The visit did allow me to take care of important business – obtaining a new prescription for nicotine patches. I had been cutting them in half to stretch out my supply. It's been 10 days since my last cigarette and the urge to smoke has not subsided.

My nicotine addiction remains powerful, the “triggers” too numerous. I'm not sure how much the patches help, but I'm taking no chances. Hard to keep them lit, though.

I kept my dinner “date” with my longtime golf partner and good friend, Ron, at his country club. Ron received one of my first calls after my diagnosis, but we had not yet met face-to-face.

We refer to ourselves as “the brothers from different mothers.” We act like brothers, alternately arguing over anything and everything and then amusing ourselves with our collective stupidity and inside jokes.

Dinner was great. We sat and drank and ate for nearly three hours, the conversation twisting and turning in surprising directions. It proved a terrific ending to what I feared might be a perfectly awful day.

The groundhog within me senses that a warm, happy spring will be arriving sooner than later. I'm ready to wade through all off the crap in the hope of fulfilling that promise.

Thanks, groundhog. I needed that.

Tuesday: Jan. 31, 2012

The quiet of the church rushed at me as I walked inside. A gray winter dawn had arrived without much enthusiasm. I dipped my fingers into the holy water receptacle, crossed myself and walked down a dimly lit corridor and into the darkened sanctuary where I knelt and prayed for the soul of a needy miscreant: -- me.

Prayer had not come easy. I'd slowly begun to pull from heart and form in my mind words that asked God to look after friends, family and whoever else might need some help.

Yet I had not been able to pray for my sorry soul. My friend Bob, far wiser than me in so many respects,  strongly impressed the idea that God not only wants to help me, he has forgiven me and I don't have a choice in the matter.

I had come  for 6:45 a.m. Mass, which is typically attended by a couple dozen people and is held in the church's small, austere chapel. The old priest who welcomed me back to Mother Church usually served as celebrant.

I found my normal seat a few minutes before Mass began and continued to pray. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I repeated the prayers I learned as a boy. Those tears served as a balm. There, in that chapel, nothing could harm me. I silently lay open my fears and vulnerabilities, knowing I would not be judged. I felt safe. I knew I did not suffer alone.

Many of the responses at this Mass are sung. I added my voice with all the enthusiasm I could muster. I needed God to hear me.

After Mass, I stopped at Bialy's for bagels. Yes, I’m talking about bagels here, but if you want perfection, it's Bialy's. Seeds from a still warm mish mash scattered across my lap as I tore off chunks and devoured them on the short drive home.

I napped a bit before I headed to the West Side to visit Aaron, a friend whom I had met from poker and the only person I ever known has has made money from a philosophy degree. Interestingly, all of his degrees came after he dropped out of high school and earned a G.E.D. He now has a couple of part-time college teaching gigs.

Aaron and his wife, Lisa, supplement their income by roasting and selling coffee. At his house on a street in a sketchy West Side Cleveland neighborhood, I asked him to brew me a cup before we headed to my favorite Mexican joint nearby. Aaron went through an elaborate process of grinding and dripping and plunging that produced a cup of rich, dark coffee. I could never come close to duplicating that flavor at home.

Born Jewish, Aaron is an avid non-believer. Given his multiple degrees and the subjects he teaches (including medical ethics), he has spent considerable time pondering the human condition, alive and dead.

I would hardly describe our friendship as close, but I've come to trust him. Perhaps it's some of the eclectic interests that we share. I've told him things I’ve not told anyone else.

As we waited for our food at Mi Pueblo, I had my first and only conversation about an “end game” – what I would do knowing life's finish line had come into view. Do I wait and suffer, stumbling in agonizing pain like a spent marathon runner? Or do I peacefully push myself across the line?

“You'd need to know what you're doing,” Aaron replied calmly. “That's not something you'd want to screw up.”

I agreed. What was not said, but believe to be true, is that Aaron, with all of his strength and resolve, would help me make that peaceful push. I so hope it does not come to that.

The conversation turned in gentler direction when our food arrived. Aaron delivered a message that I now hold close to head and heart: No matter what or how you believe, negative thoughts only compound your troubles. The better you’re able to banish them, the better off you are.

I dropped Aaron off after lunch and headed back to the Heights, stopping to see my father on the way. The doctor had recently prescribed him a couple of new meds and he was lucid and cogent as I've seen him in awhile. I still lack the resolve to tell him about my cancer.

The last errand of the day was an appointment with the church pastor so I could mee him and officially join the church. We sat in front of his desk and talked for around 40 minutes. I found Father S. to be engaging and quite likable. He struck me as kind and quite smart, an admirable mix.

He listened patiently as I gave him the Cliffs Notes for the Life of Mark. He said he understood my lingering doubts about the church and acknowledged that it had much work to do. He suggested I pick a saint “on the other side” with whom to share my journey. Without much thought, I chose Saint Ignatius of Loyola.

Father S. smiled approvingly and explained that Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuit order, also underwent a “foxhole conversion.” Ignatius found God after being literally being struck withi a cannonball. He then shed his armor and instruments of war and dedicated his life to God.

I then knelt on the floor of his office as he performed the “annointing of the sick,” formerly known as  extreme unction. I can’t say the procedure provided much confidence in how God would view my immortal soul, but I figured it couldn't hurt.

And, interestingly, Father S. repeated what Jeannie the nurse had told me: It's time to relinquish control and let God and medicine take over.

I'm good with that. I just hope it works.

Monday: January 30, 2012

My first radiation treatment proved anticlimactic.

The ladies positioned me on the table, instructed me to grab the bar above my head and to lie very still as The Big Machine made its impressive 240-degree sweep around me, shooting moon beams from both under the table and from two positions above. The high-pitched buzz alerts you when The Big Machine is doing its thing.

From the time the techs closed the door at the start of treatment until their return consumed 12 minutes. They let patients choose their music during treatment and have an iHome in the room. I dialed down my iPod  to a longtime favorite: Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine.”

Lynn stood in the hallway with the techs, shooting the video screens that techs use to monitor patients.  Thanks to Floyd, she said, it all looked and sounded quite spooky.

After radiation, I convinced Lynn to schlep to my hometown of Perry, 35 miles east of Cleveland, to capture something for the documentary. I'm not sure what. I wanted her to see “home,” a place I view with not much fondness today.

We went to Perry Park, where I played baseball. That’s where some of the best memories of my hometown reside. I always got a small thrill when we passed that last copse of trees and the green fields of the park, situated along the lake, came into view.

We then stopped by the graves of my mom and my sister, Mary Ann. That felt a bit strange and forced. I’m not a visitor of graves. I don't see much utility in it. I've made it abundantly clear that my ashes should be placed in the dust heap of insignificant and soon-to-be-forgotten history.

The only other stop occurred in front of my childhood home, the only place I lived until I left Perry for the Army nine days after graduating from high school. I could not escape fast enough.

Lynn dropped me at home in the Heights by noon. I had a bowl of the vegetable soup my sister, Kay, had brought to me, slurped down a high-calorie shake and promptly passed out. My sleep schedule remains spotty at best, but regular naps are helping.

Mary Lou is taking Hanna to The Gathering Place in Beachwood this afternoon, a wonderful resource for families and patients dealing with cancer. She took the kids there during her journey with breast cancer. Hanna would like to talk to someone about what she's feeling now that she is watching yet another parent go through treatment.

The guilt continues to mount. I can recall going to The Gathering Place only once during Mary Lou's treatment and that was to drop the kids off for a program.

Like so many things in our marriage, I’ve depended on her to do the right thing. I never thought to use the services of The Gathering Place. I didn’t have cancer. Me, me, me, me, me.

I never doubted that Mary Lou would make a full recovery. Failure was not an option. I don't think I was capable of raising two young kids.

My heart bled as I watched how chemo sickened her and how radiation sapped her of strength. Yet she trudged on like the soldier that she is.

I think I helped her during the process, but I'm confident that I did not do enough. I plead guilty to compartmentalizing. The gravity of her cancer never seemed quite real. I defined that episode in our lives as something to deal with and forget as quickly as possible.

I remember now a friend chiding me strongly for continuing to smoke despite what she was enduring. I, of course, paid him no mind.

Despite all of that, I know Mary Lou will provide me with the exquisite, unquestioning love and care she has always given me these past 22 years.

She knows that standing behind a Potemkin Village of professed bravery and optimism, a small, scared boy quivers. I need her now more than ever.