A Simple Thank You Will Do

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been 3+ months since I’ve checked in … the long and short of it: I finished four more rounds of chemo in May, had a scan that looked okay, and agreed with the doctors I’d take the summer off before starting chemo again. Here’s the thing though, I happened to get pretty sick towards the end of chemo – for the first time since I was diagnosed with cancer back in 2020, I actually got plain-old-regular-nasty virus kinda sick. I was only off my feet for a day I think, but the cough lingered for quite some time. Let it be known, no one likes to hear a guy with a bunch of tumors in his lungs cough, especially the guy with the tumors. It rattled me. In fact, even though I told everyone around me that it’s normal to get sick every now and then (and I hadn’t really been sick-sick in a few years), the cough scared the hell out of me. I took more than a few long, solo trips to the dark side during that stretch, imagining the cancer in my lungs was spiraling out of control, etc. I tried to bike my way through it – as in, “let me just hammer out a great ride to set my mind at ease.” That did not go as planned. The rides weren’t so great, and, shocker, they just made the cough worse.

The kicker was when we went out for a family dinner one night, and everyone got up to use the restroom except Tegan and I. I sneezed, and when I looked down, I had blood on my hand. Little known fact: It was a bloody sneeze that ultimately resulted in a doctor’s visit, a scan, and a stage-4 diagnosis back in 2020. I could not believe what I was seeing. I was literally paralyzed with fear at that moment. Here we were, out to dinner, looking forward to Briton’s upcoming graduation weekend at UVA, Mackie setting off to study abroad in London, and a summer of travel and fun, and all the sudden I was back to square one. I kept it to myself that night, ordered a margarita, and enjoyed our family time, but in the days to follow, the dark places got darker. I’d scheduled my post-chemo scan for after graduation and both Mackie and Briton leaving for Europe … I just wanted everyone off and living their lives if things were going to turn south, if that makes sense. I’ve had a lot of scans over the past few years, and they always rank high on the all-time gut-check list. This one might have been the worst. I have done my best not to bargain with God through all of this … to stick to the simple truth that He has a plan for me, and to commit to accepting that plan. Well, I didn’t bargain, but I prayed very hard, and very specifically, that the plan would involve me getting to enjoy this amazing life He’s given me for many years to come.

Well, as I said in the opening, the scan was okay. I walked out with a cd, went home, popped it in the computer (that’s always the toughest moment), and started going through the images myself, measuring tumors, entering numbers into my ridiculous tumor-tracking-spreadsheet, and running formulas. The scan was better than okay. It was “good” in fact. For the first time since I was diagnosed, the average tumor size had actually shrunk a little, and the big tumor we radiated back in January had continued to shrink at a fast pace (it was, in fact, down a whopping 75%). Even my mangled rib looked a little better. I met with my oncologist and then the radiation specialist … everyone was happy, and everyone agreed it was time to take a few months off. I’d been in some form of chemo or radiation for about 10 months straight, and I was beginning to rack up some pretty impressive lifetime stats (4 kinds of chemo drugs over 12 rounds, 21 sessions of radiation in 3 different places, surgical scarring, radiation scarring, some wire in my sternum, and 5 pieces of lungs cut out). It was time to heal up a little.

I talk to God every day. It’s pretty simple. I ask for forgiveness for my short-comings, I pray for my family and friends and anyone else I know of that’s in need, and I give thanks. I thank God for the little things and the big things. I think the thanking is the most important part of any such conversation. Gratitude. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, for me, it’s the most direct line to feeling His presence in my life. No matter what’s happening, when I take the time to find things to be thankful for and communicate that gratitude, I find peace. For the past several months, I have been enjoying the rich life I’ve been blessed with, just as I prayed for: Briton’s graduation, visiting Mackie in London, watching the Big Momma’s House trilogy with Tegan and Briton while Christie and Aedan took their own London trip, bonding with friends and family at every turn, and, as always, chasing the magical 4.91-mile cycling PR (got within 5 seconds, just yesterday). But I have been remiss in not broadcasting my gratitude to the world. Maybe I’ve just been swept downstream by daily life, maybe it’s just hard to write about cancer when you’re enjoying a reprieve, or maybe I wanted to write something really special and didn’t know where to start. Well, it occurred to me today that a simple thank you would do. So here it is, thank you God, for blessing me with the past few months.

I’m hopping back on the chemo train here in the next month or so. Back to nail-biting scan days, infusions, and side effects. That’s okay. I have no doubt there will be hundreds of things to be thankful for every step of the way.

Until next time … Peace out!