This is My Support Network! And They Got Me Through Cancer

I'm working with the American Cancer Society this month as an official "Real Man Wearing Pink!" Please consider donating at the link here:

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I've also included a video to help you understand why I'm doing this.

And if you enjoy a good story, how about this one from when I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma (bone cancer) way back in 1983. Yes, I'm still around!

The first Doctor I saw (August 1983) was a delightful woman who told me after asking lots of questions that I had probably strained some ligaments in my right knee, and gave me some muscle-relaxers and told me to rest it and come back in a couple of weeks.?I took the meds, stayed off the knee, and it didn’t improve at all, although I did get lots of sleep.?When I went back to see her, the Doctor took some x-rays and referred me to an Orthopedist.?This is where it gets funny.

I came back about a week later, still hurting, for my appointment with the orthopedist.?A pretty young nurse showed me to a very large room that had been divided with green curtains into maybe 9 examining rooms.?It was fairly empty so it really wasn’t very noisy as you might expect.?I sat up on the examining table and clearly heard a Doctor go into the curtained space next door and discuss a VERY personal problem with a female student who it seemed had enjoyed a little too much male company in the recent past.?I tell you, I was embarrassed for her as he described methods of avoiding such problems in the future and prescribed her appropriate medications and preventative measures.?I then heard him walk over to a desk in front of the curtained spaces and speak into some sort of recording device all the patient’s vital information including his diagnosis, treatments, and recommendations for another visit in the near future.?It did not strike me as odd at the time that an Orthopedist would be handling such things.?

?Then I heard him ask the nurse “Who’s next?”?

?“Mr. Michael Ber-TAWT doctor.” (No one ever gets that right, it’s BURR-toe).?I then heard him open a chart and rustle plastic, my assumption was it was the x-ray film he was manipulating.?I then heard him slap the x-ray up into the reader, a sound I swear to you I can hear right now as I write this.

?FOOOO—WHAP!?“Hmmm, this isn’t good”….

?FOOOO—WHAP!?“Oh, I don’t like the looks of this…”

?FOOOO-WHAP!?“Where is this patient, we need to see him right away…”

?Of course, by this time my only thought is “How long have I got??”?But it really didn’t sink in to be afraid just yet.?The Doctor came in through the curtain, shook my hand and led me over to the x-ray reader where I saw a very large bone, my right femur, with a very large dark spot over it, covering maybe 1/2 of the bone itself, some 10 inches of shadow.?The bone’s surface under the spot wasn’t smooth like the rest of the bone; it was serrated like a cheap kitchen knife.?It was then I learned the name of the enemy, initial reconnaissance reports indicate it was OSTEOSARCOMA.?I looked up the Latin later, basically means hole or void in the bone.

Right after that noisy orthopedist showed me my x-rays and said he was very sure I had osteosarcoma, he advised me to see an oncologist (cancer or chemo doctor) and get the diagnosis confirmed.?He also told me that I really needed to get on crutches because the bone under attack was definitely much weaker than a normal femur “You’re lucky it hasn’t broken already, big as you are!” he said, and onto crutches I went.?Imagine how it was next, I crutched back to my dorm, met my girlfriend (now my wife) in the hallway and she smiled and asked if the Doctor had fixed me up.?I told her bluntly that no, I had bone cancer.?How’s that for ruining somebody’s day??

I then had to go home and tell my parents.?Being the oldest, strongest, and largest of 5 children, you can imagine my parents held their first-born in pretty high esteem.?My Dad was in immediate denial, but to his credit, when I told him what hospitals the orthopedist had recommended we go to, he snorted and said no way, I was going to Oschner in New Orleans.?My first thought then was, of course, that I was going to the same hospital I visited all my relatives in right before they died.?It was a family tradition.?My Dad’s dad had died there before I was born.?I had visited a slew of aunts, uncles, and other lesser-known older relatives at Oschner, it seemed they all went there to die.?At least at that moment, I couldn’t remember a single one getting out alive.?So off we went, referred by the first orthopedist to the cancer specialists there, who really did a good job of explaining things to me and putting me through a bazillion tests over a day or two.?Then the oncologist introduced me to my orthopedic surgeon, who offered me a proposal, one that the average 22 year old should never have to face.

“Ok, Mike, it’s like this.?You have osteosarcoma, a very malignant type of bone cancer.?We believe we’ve caught it in the initial or primary site, and there’s no evidence of spread so far, so we were lucky there.?Now, I want to ask you a very grown up question, and you need to give me a grown up answer.?Do you want to know everything that I know, or just what I think you need to know?”

Without thinking, I said “I want to know everything that you know.?I can handle it.”?Have I ever been more wrong about anything in my life??Probably not.?Anyway, he went on

“Ok, here’s the deal.?There’s a 50/50 chance you will be alive three years from now.?Standard treatment is amputation of your leg above the spread of the tumor, then about six to nine months of chemotherapy, and if it doesn’t show up anywhere else, you’re good to go.?The good news is I don’t know of a single recorded case of this stuff showing back up in anyone who’s been clean for three years.?If you make it three years without a recurrence, you’re probably done.”

I summoned up my courage, the little I had left, and asked “Any alternative to losing the leg?”

He looked me up and down, like he was measuring me for something (I was hoping not a coffin) and he kind of half-smiled and got real thoughtful for a minute.?Then he said, “Ok, I’m running a kind of experimental treatment here for an alternative to amputation.?It’s called limb salvage and it’s JUST that, salvage.?If you get to keep your leg, and I’ll let you know if you do, you’ll have maybe 20 or 30% of the functionality you have now.?The primary advantage really is you won’t have to go looking for it at night to go pee.?Guys with artificial legs hate that.?But either way, your days of athletic activity are going to be over.?No tennis, basketball, running, it’s all done.?Get used to that idea or this treatment will fail no matter how good I am or what I do.?Can you live with that?”

Talk about Hobson’s choice.?At 22 I was pretty well defined by my abilities, mostly athletic.?So go ahead Mike, choose, no leg, or a severely handicapped one, Oh but at least you can pee without having to strap on your fake one.?Great.?Not liking my options here at all.?50/50 life or death, crappy leg or no leg, this was just getting better and better.?

“Tell me about the limb salvage.?What happens next?”

He started explaining it to me.?3 months of the nastiest chemotherapy imaginable, injected through a pipe run into an artery and parked right on the tumor.?“It will make you sick” he said gravely.?Understatement of the century.?Evaluations and CT Scans after every treatment to make sure the tumor was under control.?The slightest spread or lack of progress and the deal is off.?If the chemo didn’t kill 50% of it the deal was off.?If I couldn’t live with the limitations of the new leg, the deal was off.?Major surgery after the third treatment to remove the offending section of bone, and replace it with an internal prosthesis and artificial knee.?Another year of chemo after that.?The list just went on and on.?Honestly, during his explanation, I started to drift off.?It was like there was so much there that my mind refused to wrap itself around all these horrible, alien things going through my mind.?Which brings up an important point, never, ever, ever go to an important Doctor visit alone.?I cannot emphasize this enough.?You need someone else in there with you because you can’t remember all the stuff they told you.?Plus it’s comforting to not have to listen to so much bad news by yourself.?For God’s sake, bring somebody with you, please!

In the midst of that fog of consciousness, as he was rattling on, I honestly heard someone whisper to me, like they were standing next to me, “You’re not going to die.?Trust me.”?At that time I really didn’t know who or what it was, but I will tell you from that point forward, I struggled with many things, but I never for a minute doubted my own survival.?I just couldn’t convince anyone else of that.?Everybody thought I was dying.?Cancer in 1983 was a bit more of a death sentence than it is now.?But for that one moment, I was in wonder and in peace.?I forgot that delightful moment too quickly, and at my own peril.??....