meme patch

Hello Everyone,

In November 1977 my doctor said “there hasn’t been a sign of cancer in your body since June.” I went weak in the knees and almost fainted. Why hadn’t they told me that great news in June? Perhaps because they understood the risk of my refusing to continue the course of treatment that had been planned out in the fall of 1976 when I was diagnosed with stage 3B Hodgkins. I was 19 at the time of diagnosis. My treatment, both chemotherapy and radiation, lasted a full year. I somewhat stoically endured that treatment.

Boy oh boy, do I know what you are going through. They used the MOPP protocol on me. I believe they quit using it in favor of chemos with less violent side effects. However it sounds like there really isn’t a difference in your case Danny. For me retching and thowing up would start half an hour after the injection and last for a day or two. How about you?

Sticking with it is really key. Check that date in my first sentence again. In 1977 they barely knew what they were doing. Successful treatment had been discovered just six years earlier. Only 60% of the patients would go on to survive long term. I’m sure your doctors have told you about the chances today.

What they haven’t told you about is life after chemo. It’s great – and not just because you don’t have to go through chemo any more.

Danny, I’m sure you’ve been asked “What do you want to do when you grow up?” Why do grownups ask about work, which most of them don’t like?

I want to know what fun you are going to have after chemo. Will you think about that as much as possible? Maybe even do some of it now?

Here are some of things I’ve done since I finished up with chemo. By the way I live in Portland, Oregon. When I was being treated I lived in Boise, Idaho. Between then and now I’ve also lived in San Francisco and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Raised a german shorthair pointer, who I named Woof. These dogs have short fur and spots, love to run and have lots of energy. Woof was a friendly dog – even to cats.

Go swimming. I was on swim team in high school, so I have always felt comfortable in the water. Think about what it’s like to swim with a snorkel in the Florida keys, Hawaii, or the reefs of Bali (in Indonesia, west of Australia) looking a bright tropical fish – some of them bigger than your head. Think about rafting down a wild river and flipping out of the raft in a quiet section between rapids and swimming along side the raft. Imagine being at the side of a lake on a hot afternoon and diving in just to feel the chill of the water.

When I got fat (when I was being treated for Hodgkins I was really, really skinny and stayed that way for years) but finally I got fat I started to ride a bicycle. At first five miles was “enough”. Then I rode more and more and more. I’ve ridden alongside ducks taking off from a pond and flying so close to me I could hear their wings beating. I’ve ridden across mountain passes in the Cascades – OK climbing up was not the most fun – but the 20 miles of zoooming downhill quickly made up for it. I like to smell things while I ride. The pancakes cooking at a little cafe, the flowers in a lady’s garden, the fresh cut smell of wood at a sawmill, hay and freshly cut grass. Or rain – when the first few drops hit the ground the world smells wonderful. Somehow being on a bike makes all the smells better.

Those are just three things I happily remember from my life. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, more – when you live a long time you get to collect all sorts of memories while you have all sorts of fun, interesting, weird, inspirational and other kinds of experience.

At the same time I still remember being in chemo. Each year that memory, the one you are getting now, gets softer and softer. Most times now when I remember being in chemo it is like remembering when I tied my shoes yesterday. Imagine what that must be like: the sickness you are having now becomes as stirring as the memory of tying your shoes.

The good memories are much stronger than the bad ones. I hope you stay with treatment so that on some day over 30 years from now you Danny, like me, will have a lifetime of good experiences and memories and a love for the years of life your treatment provided.

Good luck with the endurance race you’re in now.

Write if you’d like to. I’ll answer any question I can.

Michael
who had stage 3B Hodgkins in 1976.