Chapter 3: Road Trip

My road trip to Bloomington and Indianapolis added yet another chapter to this troubling portion of my life’s journey. To my surprise, it was a very positive event and I was left feeling curiously optimistic.

To begin with, the IU medical center visit was, for lack of a better term, promising. My buddy Skip and I got there early Thursday morning after leaving Bloomington. And unlike other road trips we’ve taken over the years, we were both rested with no hangover. I suspect it’s probably past the time in my life where I cope by drinking through things. As for Skip, he’s always been the poster child for moderation. Me, well that’s another story best left to your imagination. The amazing thing is how, despite our many differences, we have stayed so connected.

Upon arrival, we were both escorted into a medical office space where I was administered the basic stuff like temperature and blood pressure readings. Blood pressure was 120 over 68, temperature was whatever normal is. Then I was asked a myriad of questions. The nurse was extremely friendly. In fact, the whole office section we were in was replete with friendly sounds like laughter and lighthearted banter between people who I assumed were patients talking with their doctors. The mood was definitely not the somber one I was expecting in a throat cancer ward.

Soon my doctor came in. He had a name I can’t pronounce and I suspect his roots were from a foreign country, perhaps India. He could have been Italian. And yes, he could have been an American. But regardless of his origin of birth, he was a very handsome man who I guess was probably in his mid-forties. He carried with him an extremely warm, friendly, and compelling presence. He is someone you would immediately notice irrespective of how you met them. I liked him from the first moment he stepped into the room.

After saying hello, he seated himself in a chair next to me and stretched out making himself totally comfortable. His first question was directed at where I got the baseball cap I was wearing. Written in white on the blue cap are the words Noble County Draft Horse Association. I got it a few years ago from a farmer I used to have coffee with in the mornings when I lived out of county. The doctor’s apparent interest in my cap immediately cemented our relationship. It dawned on me he’s the type of people person who knew exactly how to begin a critical conversation by disarming the anxiety of his patient.

We spent the first few minutes chatting about my recent visit to Bloomington. He seemed amused by the fact Skip and I used this opportunity to take a mini vacation. He then asked me what I knew about my condition. I told him what I knew plus the fact that I had decided to not undergo a full glossectomy. I’d roll the dice with chemo and radiation if that were my only option. Then it was his turn.

The first thing he did was poke his fingers around the base of my tongue. While his touch never caused pain, it still resulted in an uncomfortable feeling. Before this event, I never had anyone poking around my mouth with their fingers. But by now, I’ve gotten used to uncomfortable sensations in mouth.

Next, he scoped my throat making me say “ah” every time as he went down deeper with the camera. Amazingly enough, I was able to calm my instinct to gag. Again, experienced throat "pokees" acquire a certain type of immunity when it comes to being orally assaulted. The resulting images demonstrated that the tumor had not grown to a point where you can see its outline in the skin of my throat. By the way, that’s a good thing.

During the following forty minutes we talked medically about all that was happening. Not once did I get the impression he was performing under the confines of a clock. Rather he was slow and very deliberate. His overall demeanor was incredibly warming and I was simply mesmerized by his presentation. Over the years, I have met a number of health care professionals as I tried to understand the actions of some of my more troubled client. Although this meeting involved a significantly different set of circumstances from those, I would still say it was the most meaningful conversations I’ve ever shared with an expert.

So here’s the deal. He and his entire staff specialize in throat cancer. That includes his radiologists. He has scheduled me for one of his MRIs because he believes his radiologists will be able to tell a lot about this particular tumor. Apparently, it’s a very unique type of tumor in terms of its location and growth and the previous images don’t tell him enough about how much of my tongue is affected. Nonetheless, he believes that he can remove the cancer by removing half of my tongue. The surgery would entail taking a piece of skin from my thigh and fashioning a false half of a tongue but leave me with the ability to eat solid foods and, perhaps, once again regain clarity in my speech.

There’s a downside. By the way, there usually is with this kind of shit. Surgery would last for hours and be followed by a seven-day hospital stay with the first two or three days in the ICU. He warned me of the possibility of some dire complications but felt the reality would be that I’d come through just fine. However, I’d be sore for a period of time and unable to eat and perhaps, unable to swallow for a while. When I recovered, I’d come back home and start chemo and radiation. And he didn’t have to tell me how much fun that was going to be.

We left it that I would return soon for my MRI. If the test showed that I could keep half my tongue, it would likely be a go. If it showed otherwise, I’d definitely pass and take my chances with radiation and chemo.

Before we went our separate ways, we shared a very warm handshake evidencing to me he fully understood and empathized with my plight. And although I never asked him his opinion, I had a strong sense he mirrored my views about the personal price I was willing to negotiate for quality of life.

I learned a couple of things from this meeting I’d like to share. Veteran survivors are pretty much spot on when they advocate the need for a second opinion. While I have nothing but respect and admiration for my local doctors, this particular appointment gave me the information I needed in furthering my quest for a treatment answer. By the way, my local doctors were the ones who referred me in the first place.

Second, you really should have someone with you at these meetings so you can later compare notes about all you just heard. My paralegal has pounded this suggestion into my head. And I’m talking about having someone there for more than just holding hands. By the way, Skip and I didn’t hold hands. That’s not to imply we, in any way, oppose same sex couples, but that’s not how we roll. But if you’re in a same sex relationship, by all means hold hands as long as you are both listening and willing to contribute to the conversation. And that’s the whole point. I talked for about a half an hour with Skip on the ride back to his Carmel house.  He and I compared mental notes and it turns out his thoughts about my options are pretty much in line with mine.

A third thing you might want to consider if, God forbid, you’re forced to confront this issue, is to turn an out-of-town appointment into a road trip. For me, it was a splendid mechanism to distance myself from the familiar. In a way, the trip cleansed my mind. And there was the added bonus of laughter. However, some fairly serious personal issues confronted Skip during our Wednesday afternoon and evening. But in a way, his issues helped me solidify an already in-placed understanding about us humans and the stuff we’re forced to go through.

.    .    .

I begin the story of Skip with a stark reminder as well as an absolute unqualified truth. None of us are getting out of this thing alive. And death and the afterlife were topics my friend and I pondered aloud as we walked our way throughout campus and the downtown. The bottom line is you just can’t go thru this shit around good friends without broaching the topic.

 Our discussions eventually focused on my attitude. He was curious about why I seemed so calm. The answer is, I don’t really know. Typically, my response to any worthy crisis is filled with expletives and anxiety. And it made me wonder if perhaps the gravity of the whole thing hasn’t hit me yet. I know that when I was a younger man, thoughts about things like the C word were followed by some pretty strong reactions. Back then I assumed I’d never be able to muster up the emotional strength to battle such an enemy.

So, it occurred to me that maybe some part of my psyche isn’t capable of accepting the truth about what is likely in store for me in the very near future. That perhaps I haven’t yet reached my personal terror threshold triggering a total meltdown.

But I think the truth is I’m emotionally prepared for this part of my journey. And it’s something I keep working at…real hard. I say this only because I’ve known a lot of good friends, as well as few acquaintances, who’ve been thru this type of crisis before. I’ve sat with them and cried. I sat next to a couple of them as they were in the act of dying. And almost without exception, I’ve witnessed the amazing fortitude and grace they displayed in the face of a very dark unknown.

So, I have come to firmly believe what happens is this disease and others like it unleashes a previously hidden vast reservoir of inner strength. It’s a spiritual treasure chest we each own and have available to access. We shall soon find out if I’m correct. If you see me panicking and crying like a five-year-old being dragged to the dentist, you’ll know I missed the mark on this particular call.

A second absolute truth we should all keep in mind is very few of us will get out of this life unscathed. Personal crisis is part of life’s fabric. Case in point, Skip. By the way, I asked his permission to tell his story and he gave it. However, I’m not sure he understood that this blog would expose his personal life to the view of anybody who wanted to read about it. But that’s his problem now, he should have asked more questions about what a blog is.

Skip is a beautiful human being and an extremely gifted lawyer. We got to know one another about 25 years ago and somehow started playing golf together. Soon after, we found ourselves surrounded by a group of other people who we now refer to as our golf buddies. And we’re all close, at least close enough to drink together and, should the occasion arise, share our personal problems. These problems usually involved kids and spouses. But mostly, we just drank together and did stupid stuff.

As time went on, we all began taking golf trips together. We’d go to Texas, Florida, and numerous points in between. But I suspect our favorite destination was downtown Nashville Tennessee. I could literally write a hundred pages or more detailing all the shit we got ourselves into. Suffice it to say, those trips will forever be etched in my mind. Or at least as long as forever lasts.

At any rate, Skip and his wife (another beautiful person) adopted a two-year-old special needs child thirty years ago. Around the time of the adoption, the young girl suffered a stroke paralyzing the right side of her body. Their goal in life suddenly became making sure she’d be taken care of when they passed. This meant ensuring her financial future, a goal which they accomplished very early on. They also spent summers out of state visiting various universities and hospitals working on restoring her mobility and speech. They’d do things like having the unaffected side of her body placed in a cast for two weeks so she’d be forced to develop the stroke affected areas. They literally spent tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours on all types of therapies. The net result is that the child can now live alone on her own and enjoy life. While she’ll always need to be seen by health care workers conducting home visits in the nearby home Skip bought her, the child has succeeded in her independence beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.

But they felt compelled to do even more.

Since it was fairly late in their life when they adopted their daughter and because they had no children of their own, they felt a need to create a larger family. The thought was that when they were gone, there would remain trusted and loved brothers and sisters to keep an eye on one another. So, they decided to adopt a ten-year-old brother and his nine-year-old sister from a war-torn orphanage in a ravaged part of Russia.

Beautiful thought, bad idea. And all of us, except Skip, immediately recognized the huge red flag. It was a huge elephant in the living room you simply couldn’t miss. After paying some adoption agency tens of thousands of dollars, they booked their first flight to meet the children soon followed by a second flight to bring them here to the United States.

 During this time period, one of our half-lit golfing buddies suggested to Skip that instead of adopting the Russians, he should spend his money buying us hookers and drinks for the rest of our lives. As he put it, we’d all be happy and Skip would save a fortune in cash and misery. The truth of the matter is our golfing buddy was probably right.

The dream disintegrated straight out of the gate. The poor kids had no taste for love and security. And their escalating anti-social behaviors led to all sorts of problems involving school and, at times, the police. Their capacity to embrace what some might have viewed as a “fairy tale life come true” just wasn’t there. While it’s great to hope that a wonderful home coupled with the purest of intentions can make a difference, the truth is sometimes otherwise. And the reports about Russian adoptees are replete with stories about fetal alcohol syndrome, sexual abuse, and violence. In fact, the horror stories caused such an uproar, the program for Americans to adopt Russian children was eventually suspended.

The adopted Russian daughter is now a thirty-year old raging alcoholic living with her angry alcoholic brother in an apartment Skip rented for them near his home. The problem (among so many) is that the daughter got pregnant out of wedlock and now has a nine-year-old son who Skip and his wife have been watching, hoping their daughter will wake up and start doing the right things. Although she went to rehab recently after being found on the front lawn passed out and testing .35, she left three days later.

Skip and his wife absolutely adore the nine-year-old and are willing to make him theirs, hoping to save him from the emotional destruction wrought by his mother and uncle. But the sister and her brother are demanding the child’s return. To them, the child is their property. The two made their demands known while Skip and I were walking the campus. So, the focus of our field trip turned from my problems to those now facing Skip.

God only knows how many phone calls he placed to or received from DCS, the public school system, his wife, his adopted Russian daughter, and adopted Russian son. Although he was glued to his phone for extended periods of time, he fit in pretty well with everybody else on campus. I was left marveling at how many students were walking about staring down at their phone and texting. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that every nine out of ten students I saw appeared hypnotized by their phones.

Skip's presence on this trip was very good for my spirit, not in spite of his family emergency but probably because of it. I was reminded of how there is never a shortage of personal crisis. While the initial focus of our trip was me, it quickly changed, just as everything does if you give it enough time. What you wound up having in Bloomington was two grown time-honored idiots muddling through each other’s complicated worlds. And that made for a very meaningful sojourn.

So, how did we spend our night? We walked, talked, and drank beer. That’s basically the same thing I did 45 years ago except I sometimes went to class too. The campus itself seemed awfully quiet for such a beautiful Wednesday October evening. I asked one student whether it was fall break due to the lack of activity. It took Skip interpreting for me before the young man understood what I was asking. He answered by noting that it was 8 p.m. and that most kids were likely studying or getting ready to call it a night.

Really? Referring to 8 p.m. as “calling it a night” on such a beautiful warm fall evening in Southern Indiana had never been words in my college vocabulary. I suspect the real truth is they were all in their rooms glued to their phones.

And that about sums up my trip to the doctor’s office. 

Until next time,

John.