360 Cycling



Cancers First 24hrs

When cancer first hit our family we were out of town, just coming from a trusted acupuncturist. Over the days that followed I had no one to talk to. My friends were all work friends or cycling buddies. At the time I didn't feel comfortable talking about this with a bunch of people I rode with, later I found out I could share a bit of what was going on. I needed to get out what was happening watching my wife go through this, what I was going through as well. So I started writing it all down, this is what I wrote about the first twenty-four hours. This is from my perspective, not my wife's. She had it much, much rougher than I did obviously. She doesn't want to relive what she has gone through by trying to relate her tale.

We were sitting in our car when the call came. My wife quickly started to scribble notes in her date book. I strained to hear, only picking up bits and pieces. The voice I recognized as our doctor started to speak and then asked "Are you alone?" Terry responded that I was near. The doctor began speaking again; quickly, urgently, somberly. I turned the radio the rest of the way down. My wife's eyes reddened and filled with tears as she wrote. I could only pick out a few words over the cell phone and stared at the paper as she wrote. Revealed a mass....pressure on the.....nodule.....the bladder....lymphoma of some kind - there was a pause on the phone.

My wife asked "that sounds like cancer"? Yes, was the reply. What followed was a blur of what was to happen next, the paper filling up quickly with information. I started to go numb, I didn't even listen anymore, I just stared at the page, tears smearing the ink. My wife hung up the cell phone and dropped it to the car floor, she cried. The most intelligent thing I could muster up was: What.....? Completely dazed.

That's how we found out we had cancer. Everything stopped, I reached out to my wife holding her face in my hands. "It's ok, we'll get through this. What did the doctor say?" My wife calmed herself and tried to regurgitate what she heard less than sixty seconds ago, having to check her notes. What we knew for sure was that the bladder had cancer, the lymph nodes were swollen and possibly involved. The uterine wall was thick and infected. Were there lymph nodes in the bladder? That doesn't make sense. We knew what the next couple of things to happen were. We knew that surgery may be in our very near future, chemo was definitely in our near future.

My wife has always been obsessed with her health. If she had a headache it had to be a brain tumor; that may be an exaggeration but not much of one. She regularly sees more people for her physical, mental and spiritual health than any four people I know. I don't want to say she never had reason there had been times where there were plenty of reasons and thank God she was on top of this one.

The few weeks before this event, it was no different. She just didn't feel right, her leg felt like it was swelling up. She asked me to try and "tune in" to how she was and see what I thought. Something was bugging her and her leg was indeed swelling up a bit or was that my imagination? What could I say, stop seeing people about this? The best thing I could do was to try and keep her anxiety in check and tell her to keep seeing as many people as she had to until this went away or we had an explanation and then we would take it from there.

I received a call on Tuesday, a few days before finding out we had cancer, it was Terry. She asked if I could take Friday off and take her to our acupuncturist. This is a 100 mile drive through L.A. traffic one way. It was a last minute day off and I had just started working for my new boss. That very day the CEO was in my office not happy about my departments budget. Not a good day to take a day off to say the least. I took the day off anyway making the excuse about me. I had just been through a rather serious accident myself and was facing another surgery to possibly take the pins out of my leg I had snapped during a bike ride up in Solvang so it was easy to come up with excuses.

As Friday approached I was just finishing my bicycle ride home from work and my cell phone started to ring. This was on Thursday, the day before finding out. It was Terry telling me that she was in the hospital getting an emergency CAT scan. Her pain in her leg was getting much worse, her urine smelled funny and the "hard spot" in her groin was continuing to grow. She had asked the doctor if she could move the already scheduled scan up to that day instead of waiting until next week. To be honest, there was still a part of me at this point that thought we were blowing the whole thing out of proportion but I had to support her in taking care of her health....."of course i'll meet you at the hospital".

I didn't smell too hot from my bike ride home. I toweled off, sprayed some body spray on to cover the stink and out the door I went. The next couple of hours were pretty standard fare; a lot of waiting punctuated by a few minutes of care and prodding. We were informed the results would be read in La Jolla and "you'll be told to either go to the ER or go home". That's a hell of a thing to wait around for. The radiologist said depending on what they tell us should give us an idea of what the problem really was.

That's all fine and good until you realize that ER is "real bad", "going home" is either real good or there isn't anything they can do in the short term to help what's going on. What if it was so serious the hospital couldn't help?

We went home and tried to sleep waking early for the long ride to the acupuncturist. The L.A. traffic didn't disappoint, an hour and forty-five minute drive turned into three hours. When the doctor saw Terry he stated he didn't like her color. By the time we were done at the acupuncturist Terry had an emergency consult with a nurse practitioner he trusted. We had enough time to grab a bite to eat and make it there. At first I thought "Crap...another office visit" but something was now telling me this was real, do whatever we have to. We packed ourself into the car and went down the street to a sandwich shop we knew of.

After finding a parking spot, the phone rang........

Having someone tell you or your spouse they have cancer is like being smacked in the face with a shovel. I can't imagine what Terry was going through, I never will. We sat in the car staring out the window for what seemed like twenty minutes but was probably just a few seconds. Terry called the nurse practioner and cancelled, we now knew what was going on. We tried to quickly eat lunch, a normally simple process in the sandwich shop we were at. The whole shop was only about twice the size of my modest kitchen. We walked around the shop time and time again, completely baffled by what we saw. We just wanted a sandwich. We walked around the bar where you make your own at least three or four times, we finally asked.

Sitting outside eating our lunch we alternated between completely normal, to reassuring conversation, to crying. Crying in public is not a normal thing, a day ago I could have counted the number of times I have cried at all over the last ten years on one hand and have fingers left over. Doing it in public would never happen and if it did I would have been over-whelmed in embarrassment. Now that didn't matter, soon I would learn that a lot of things didn't matter anymore.

I was one week away from a business trip to Europe. I had to cancel my trip and let the project team know that I was not going to be part of this huge project underway within our company. I tried to call my boss....voice mail. I called the Director of HR. I told her that I had lied to my boss about why I was gone and that we had been trying to find out what was going on with my wife. This was the end of coherent conversation with her. I broke down when I told her we had just been informed my wife had cancer. I asked as well as I was able to, to have her contact my boss and ask him to notify the project team I would not be a part of it.

She responded well and told me to leave the company business to her and I should only worry about my family. Less than an hour ago I would have never cancelled a trip to Germany like this and if I did, I would be worried for my job. Less than an hour ago I would have never cried in front of an employee, a peer. None of that mattered anymore. We jumped in the car and headed home. I know by looking at the clock it took a bit over two hours, I remember about ten minutes of that trip. Perhaps it was because we were talking or staring out the window - I don't know. Doctors really shouldn't tell people they have cancer unless they are sitting at home.

We spoke of beating this thing. I told my wife of all the things she was not to worry about, trying to comfort her. "Don't worry about the house", "Don't worry about the laundry", "Don't worry about the litter box". Everything I could think of as the miles rolled by unnoticed. "Don't worry about the bills", "Don't worry about the car". The list grew, not knowing anything else to say. I was strangely comforted by saying something until finally I told her "Your only job in life is to beat this thing". You don't worry about me, I can take it. All the while feeling like a lost child, desperate to find his mother. Trying to find a reason but there was no mother, there was no reason.

Men like to fix things. It's part of the problem with men according to a lot of women - "why don't you just shut up and listen". Perhaps it was because I'm a man, maybe it's because this wasn't a situation to sit back and listen. I think it was because as long as I was talking I was in charge, I was somehow in control of an uncontrollable situation.

Back in March of the year this happened I was out on a 100 mile bike ride, the Solvang century. When I was seven miles from the end I went down - hard. I snapped the neck of my femur. A lot of pain, a helicopter ride and an emergency surgery later I was back on the road to recovery. It was a bad crash that messed up my head as bad as my body. I knew of another guy who was into riding and who also faced a pretty big setback. So, when I was healing from this I bought a copy of "It's not about the bike" by Lance Armstrong. Somewhere in that book it spoke of getting rid of all the junk food and not putting anything in his body that did not provide value.

So that's what we did when we finally arrived home. I cleaned out the fridge, I threw away almost everything in the cupboard. Terry was on the phone cancelling her weekend social work and notifying her clients and her employers. We both started looking on the Internet for information, not having the slightest idea what to look for.

The rest of the evening was a blur and it was less than a day ago from when we found out and I started writing down notes of what we were going through. There was a lot of crying, a lot of talk. We discussed every possible angle on what we knew. Terry found some good information from a friend, a pair of doctors that specialize in finding all the latest information for your particular type of cancer.

It was still early, barely after 7pm. Both of us were more tired than we had ever felt, we went to bed early. I curled up behind my wife and we started positive affirmations. I kept repeating how we were going to beat this thing, that she was going to be fine; happy, healthy, how much I loved her. I stayed close and kept whispering all of the positive, supportive things I could think of until we fell asleep.

When we woke I gave Terry her new jewelry, a Live Strong bracelet. I was already wearing one. It's funny, I bought the bracelets as a reminder for me after my accident. I was a bit ticked off when I went online to buy one, I just wanted one and the least I could order was ten! I'm glad I had the spares. I had usually taken mine off when I climbed into bed, it tries to roll up your arm when you move around. This night when I felt it shift, it just reminded me that people can do hard things.

The next morning was a beautiful day. On any other day I would have been excited for a nice ride. This morning, I felt nothing. We didn't know what to do. I had a lot of shopping to do, better food to buy, supplements, vitamins, a file system to make sense of the mountain of medical paperwork to come. It's strange, a full day has not gone by yet. The biopsy was still days away, the results even further out. Still, it felt like we were about to face a great battle but we didn't want or even know how to prepare. We decided to go to breakfast. It was a long drive to the coffee shop, it was a restored train station of some sort. The odometer only read a dozen miles or so but it felt like fifty. We road along in silence and were nearly there, when it just came out of my mouth - "Every thing is changed". Terry simply replied, "yes".

It felt good to get outside, we talked about most anything except the obvious. We finally started speaking on the way home. After getting home we made a list of things that we needed. I took off, first stop was Staples. All I wanted was a small filing box, hanging folders for it, something for me to write all this you're reading now and some pens to do the writing. I walked around the store again and again. I was only able to concentrate for brief moments, my mind filled with more important things. I knew I was walking around in a daze, I also knew I had caught the attention of one of the workers, a young kid. I guess it's not everyday you see a grown man walking around Staples talking to himself about looking for hanging folders while staring straight at the fax machines.

I didn't care, it didn't matter.

I just resolved myself to the fact I would make lap after lap, as many laps around that store as it would take to find what I needed; my wife was depending on me. Slowly my cart filled up and finally off to the check out I went. When you're in a bad mood, who likes to have someone ask in the cheeriest voice they can muster, "how are you doing today?". I felt like snapping back and yelling - I just found out my wife has cancer, thanks for asking. Of course that's not what you do and I have no idea what people are suppose to say.

We told a lot of friends via email what was going on and on the same email telling them we also told them not to call us to talk about it - how stupid is that? You want to snap at someone because you want to be mad at someone, it's hard to be mad at cancer inside your wife, something I would learn to do. You want to tell everyone and no one. You want support but you have no idea on how you want to be supported.

Next, it was off to Costco, the health food store and the grocery store. Each time I parked the car I lost the car. Getting lost in Staples was interesting enough, Costco was like getting lost in the Amazon. The last thing I needed on my list was the biggest Maxi pads I could find. The tumors were pushing on Terry's bladder and she needed the protection, we learned to use blankets until the chemo started that reduced the size of the tumors and opened the arteries to her leg letting the fluid out finally.

Guys never like buying pads for their wives and girl friends. It ranks right up there with holding a purse in public while they do something. I couldn't find the things so first I asked a woman serving samples, next a perfect stranger. When both these washed out I screamed across a whole line of people getting flu shots to one of the employees working at the pharmacy. What people thought just didn't matter anymore.

I was handling things OK so far I thought, then I went into the health food store. Terry had dug out a lot of information out of her various health catalogs and had been doing research on the internet. I had a long list of supplements and vitamins. Walking into the isles where all this stuff was the worst of all. It quickly became apparent to me that everything was organized by the color of the label and the astrological sign of the last eight people that bought them. I started to lose it. My eyes filled with tears (again). Luckily a woman that worked there saw me, the only thing she said was - "let me help" and flashed me a kind smile...I muttered a thank you. I finally left the health food store and glanced at the time. I just lasted the first twenty-four hours. The days and weeks that followed made this day look like a vacation.



Researchers are very close to curing Lymphoma, it's no longer a death sentence. Please join me in the fight against this disease. It is more important than ever to donate to cancer research. Congress in all it's wisdom has cut cancer research this year. We are so very close to making Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma in particular very manageable. Like most things in life the first 90% is the easiest and this issue is in the last 10%. Help me and everyone else fighting this disease, get to the finish line.