Friday: January 27, 2012 (Part One)

Not a good day on the Cancer Ranch.

I know I have a bad disease. Dr. Verma told me my chances at the start. But those numbers resided in my head as something abstract. The warrior spirit I'm employing to fight through this medical thicket has been trying to ignore the dangers.

Today, those dangers hit me center mass. 

I had a “dry run” this morning for my first radiation treatment on Monday at the Cleveland Clinic. I had a great dress rehearsal, giving a bravura performance that consisted of me taking my shirt off, revealing an upper body that is the envy of none, and lying very still on the treatment table for 15 minutes with my arms above my head as technicians did a bunch of stuff out of my view.  

They sounded quite efficient as they went about their work. The techs explained some of what they were doing and I asked a few questions. It was all new information given how I've studiously avoided going on the Internet to look for information about lung cancer and how it's treated..

I don’t want to know. It’s too scary.

Dr. Greskovich, the radiation oncologist, has told me I'm better off than most people with lung cancer who don't realize they have the disease until it's too late. They found my tumor relatively early, which makes me lucky.

Dry run completed, Danny the technician handed me a couple of sheets stapled together that listed the times and dates for my next 40 treatments.

Cleveland Clinic? We have a problem here. No one has said anything about 40 treatments. The last thing I was told was that it would be 15, followed by another couple of weeks of prophylactic brain radiation.

How did three weeks magically become eight? The techs didn’t know. They literally were following the doctor’s orders.

I sank onto the chair where I had placed my shirt and coat and wept. I had plans, and they did not include trudging down Cedar Hill five days a week for the next two months to get blasted by radiation. My already fragile psyche had just been given a different, unwelcome jolt.

Because Dr. Greskovich was out of town, it became the job of his faithful resident, Dr. Jason Hearn, to tell me why the plan had changed so drastically.

Dr. Hearn artfully explained that Dr. Greskovich had decided the presentation of both small and non-small cell cancer, my relative youth and decent physical condition meant that he would almost triple my treatments and leave nothing to chance.

“Does this mean my cancer is worse than you all originally thought? I asked.

Dr. Hearn tip-toed a bit, but finally answered: "Yes."

I have been overwhelmed my horrifically frightening moments in the dark of the night over the last few weeks. Today, that terror revealed itself in the light of day.

It's not a pretty sight.