Building Support Systems 101

This morning I decided to go for walk and while on my journey I met a man. This man was dressed in casual clothing with a cancer ribbon on his jacket collar, accompanied by a perplexing smile. I believe in a different setting his smile might have been considered friendly but in this one it was hiding a intense secret. As we began our journey we broke the silence with a brief conversation about the weather but I knew that there was something deeper and more intimate that he wanted to share. So I began to question him about his cancer diagnosis and how it had affected his life. He smiled and said “this diagnosis hasn’t really changed me; it has changed my perspective of those whom I had previously thought were close to me”.

                This was a powerful and deep statement. I did not need to have an explanation for the position he now held because I had experienced it myself. In fact this statement took me mentally back five months ago when I was first diagnosed with cancer. It was a Friday morning and I was sitting at the doctor’s office listening to him tell me about a tumor he had found in my intestine. This was a shocking revelation for me and now I was expected to drive home as if  everything was normal. This was the longest in the hardest drive home I had ever taken. It took everything in my power to muster up enough strength to turn the steering wheel and shift the gears on my 6 speed Volkswagen Passat. When I finally made it home the first thing I wanted to do was reach out to my family.  I called them and nervously reported the news to them with the secret hope that they would say “you’ll be okay, we’ll be there for you”. This phrase was never uttered.

                After this brief historical flashback, I slowly began to focus back on my walking companion. He was in the mist of recalling his own personal cancer story. He told me that when he delivered the news to his love ones “they begin to tell him” everyone’s going through something, we all have problems of our own”. He turned to me with tears running down his unshaven face and declared that looking back, this response hurt him more than any treatment program he would have to go through. He stated that it was at this point that he knew he was completely alone and that this lack of support would retard many of the medical decisions he would have to make. He said “some mornings I wake up and feel like just staying in the bed, with the covers over my head and it is the lack of support that fuels these feelings”. He went on to say that our support groups are not preassembled and that just because someone shares the same DNA with you doesn’t mean that that they have compassion for you.       

He told me that he learned this lesson the evening after his dreadful doctor’s appointment. He said it was during this time when one of his friends spoke to him over the phone. He recalled being reluctant to share his misfortune however his desire for comfort over took his need for privacy. This friend not only listen she asked for his next appointment date and who was going to take him. To his surprise she showed up on the day of his appointment, ready to transport him. She said “I knew your pride wouldn’t allow you to ask and I felt like you needed a friend to be there, I’ll take you to this appointment, Pam will take you to the next one, Amy and Sally will you get to these” she declared as she pointed to a makeshift appointment book she had organized the day before “this should get you through the next couple of weeks, until your family is able to make it here”.

                It was at this moment that the man stopped walking, looked at me and acknowledged “I knew that my cancer was not a priority for my family and that any promises they had made me were only superficial pleasantries they used to get me off of the phone”.  We came to a crossroad, he went one way and I the other. Lucky for me this interaction did not leave me without knowledge and to repay him for his information, I gave him a strong handshake followed by a manly “take care”.

             As I sit in my room, I realize what his conversation was all about. He was telling me that people in general, are preoccupied with their own issues and this selfishness does not allow them to extend any real compassion or sacrifice for others. It is the kindness of strangers that will allow you to survive this and reaching out to familiar faces will only disappoint you in the end.  The moral of the story is “your life’s emergency many times will only be considered an urgent care episode to others”

 

 

Private Conversations

            I must say this week is been very trying however like many things in life I have noticed that what is cherished today is often taken for granted tomorrow. I did not know whether to make this into a blog or a quick posting. You can obviously tell what decision I made. First let me say, I believe that people are brought into your life to help you accomplish specific goals. I would postulate that we are not here alone and to propagate that we are, would do a disservice to our celestial proprietor. The proof for my theory is grounded in a beautiful experience I had this week.

            It was Friday and I had just got in from work and decided to lay down and take a quick nap. My pleasant slumber was interrupted by paralyzing cramps that would not allow me to move. After about 30 minutes, I received a brief five-minute of release and that is when I reach for the telephone. This event is what induced the first of my two-part hospital stay. I refuse to bore you with the details of my diagnosis or why I was cramping because that part of the story is not the beautiful part. That’s only the catalyst that allowed me to experience my awakening.

            As a laid in the hospital bed and looked out my large picture frame window at the city, I felt like I would never feel like “David” again. It was at that moment that I felt something inside me die. This was the moment in my journey that I decide to close my eyes. So I found the brightest light in the city focus on and I began to slowly give up. This is when something miraculously occurred. After a few hours, I slowly began to notice that there was someone sitting in the chair the whole time. Had I talked myself in to some posttraumatic mind altering state?

            No, this was different. I recognize this face. This is my coworker, Doug and he has sat in the chair all night praying for me while I slept. When I came to I asked him “is everything okay?” He just laughed and said “yeah man, you’ll be okay”. I did not want conversation nor was he there to give it he was just there to pray. His presence told me that he was having business with someone else in the room and I was only there as a spectator. I now understood the comfort that he brings our patients on a day-to-day basis.

A JOURNEY OF CHANGE (I KINGS 19:7)

I understand that there may be people, who feel that is not wise to write about something as personal as cancer. These people may even feel that it is a private affair and should not be publicized. I would respectfully disagree and postulate that exposure of fearful things can rob them of the power and the hold that they may have over us. I also believe that it would be really selfish of me to hide information that I have learned, from future victims.  As I look back on the first few days of my journey, I remember how useful a good support system would have been for me; unfortunately I was forced to face it alone. I did have family and friends however I did not have anyone who had been down the same road that I was now on. I had a clandestine list of folks who were survivors however they were silent and refused to share. The first 48 hours of my diagnosis were the hardest moments of my life. It was in these moments that my plans felt derailed.  I was left with a medical team that hide their emotions behind the professional opinions. 
This journey began with a test called a colonoscopy. It was on this day, that the doctor's gave me my shocking and life altering diagnosis. After I was given the news, I had to take the longest drive of my life. (and I have a manual transmission). My initial response was, disbelief, because I was a person who had never been sick a day in my life. I thought "there must be some mistake, surely you are reading the wrong chart".  

 

                That was the truth, I did feel healthy. I had not lost any weight, I had no swollen lymph nodes nor had I experienced any other signs or symptoms of cancer. The only thing that was standing between me and my future dreams was pictures of a couple of black spots in my colon. (I noticed these spots on the monitor as the doctor poked and jabbed). During my procedure, he paid so much attention to these spots, so I knew that it was something serious. I knew this long before he walked over to my side of the bed and told me that it was a tumor. When he declared his findings to me, I began to remember the last five years of my life and how I had asked my primary physician for a colonoscopy referral and each time I asked, she had denied me. She stated that I was too young to have this procedure and that the chances of me having colon cancer were extremely rare. She suggested that I wait till my 50^th birthday before I have a screening done. This memory, made me angry because if she had taken me seriously I might not be facing possible death now.  I remember the words of my deceased mother when she used to say "doctor's don't know everything" and If I had continued to trust my physician and waited eight more years I would not be writing this blog today.
                The moral of this part of the story is to be aware of what’s going on in your body, and to not to settle for pacifying answers from your health care provider. I was determined to find out, regardless of what other people told me because I was the only one that would have to live with my doctor's decisions. I just knew something urgent was happening in my body and my first surgeon confirmed this when he told me that “ my tumor had to be removed not only because it was cancerous, it had to be removed because it was obstructing my bowel”. He went on to say within 6 months my bowels would have most likely exploded causes me to die instantly. This is why the first surgery was so important. 
                The journey had begun and for the next three weeks my spiritual life would be tested along with the loyalty of the friends I had gained throughout the years. I was not prepared for this test nor was it one that I welcome. I recall a fellow cancer survivor telling me “that this diagnosis will be the one event that will change you for the rest of your life, it will cause you to see the good in everything and ignore the bad in most things".