Thistleoak
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2012
- Messages
- 1,123
- Reaction score
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So as everyone knows I have my Harleys and love to ride. I have my pipe collection and love to smoke. I have my small library at my house ( little under 1000 books)and i love to read. Not many people know that I am on my second lease on life. Last summer I didnt feel quite right I was always tired and sluggish and my weight was fluctuating at an alarming rate sometimes up or down almost 25lbs in a week. I did something I never do, I broke down and went to the doctor.... 4 blood tests, 1 MRI , a catscan and multiple soft tissue xrays later led to me sitting in an oncologists office at hackely hospital in Muskegon michigan with the Doctor giving me the long face..... I was diagnosed with Thyroid and Lymphatic cancer. Im not gonna lie, if you have never been through something like this shit get real... fast. I made a follow up appointment to put together a treatment plan, left the doctors office and went back to work. Hours rolled by and i was still not able to process the information that had been given to me... it wasnt until i was leaning against my work truck at a local icecream joint i service that it truly hit me. It was early june and tourist season had started. There was a line to get ice cream and i hear this guy say to his wife " this is total BS , its a 10 minute wait to get seated"... it took every fiber of my soul to hold it together. I wanted to say " thats your big worry... tell me how tough you really have it" i felt my eyes sting as i faught back tears. The question that haunted me was how do i tell my family... it never seemed to be the right time to say anything. I was a coward and did the most selfish thing i had ever done. I faced it alone. Having to hide a port in my chest and deal with really "bad sun burn" i slowly distanced myself from my wife.... things got bad... she would get mad because i wouldnt show emotion. Standing in the living room she looked at me and said " you aren't the man i married, i dont know whats wrong with you? Do you not love me any more?" I looked at her my eyes stinging again... i had already been through 2 chemo and 4 radiation treatments and i still hadnt told her. How do you give bad news? I just looked at her and told her my diagnosis and treatments. I took my shirt off. She welled up with tears as she reached out and touched my chest port. She then slapped me across the face hard and called me a string of names that would get someone banned from the asylum. To make a long story short and clean it up ALOT she didnt accuse me of being and intelligent person. That is the moment i learned a valuable life lesson that bad new doesnt age well. The tide of my battle changed for the better as i had my family to back me.and help me out at that point. I went through hell... i never took a single sick day from work... i had to keep busy or i felt the cancer would be in control and winning. A lot of radiation both by gamma and by irradiated iodine and more than my fair share of time in a treatment chair having "poison" pumped into me to kill the radical growth.... and eventually having my dead thyroid and lymph nodes removed... i stand before you all a wiser man.. a live man... a blessed man