The doctors have worked out a plan to save my life.

I was hoping for a little easier and faster road, but wouldn't you know it, it's harder to save my life than I was first led to believe.

I thought I'd be done with this little inconvenience in a couple months. But it will probably take 3 and 1/2 months.

The upside is this will give me the best chance of never having to go through this again. Yeah, but does it have to come at the expense of three months of impaired golf?

Dr. Anthony Ciarolla called me with the details while I was on the 17th hole today. He called back when I was in the 19th Hole (restaurant and bar) so we could discuss things at a more leisurely pace.

I'll go into his office (near San Joaquin Hospital) on Monday for about 4 hours of getting what he calls moderate chemotherapy.

For you cancer buffs out there, I'll get Taxotere and Cisplatin through IVs, and 5FU pills.

Then I get three weeks off while I get as sick or tired as these things will dish out. Two of the possible side effects are constipation or diarrhea, Can't they make up their mind?

Then I get a second dose of the same thing followed by two weeks off.

Then I get six to eight weeks of radiation along with some more Cisplatin. That will bring me pretty close to my Jan. 3 birthday.

The idea is to keep having those birthdays.

 

Wow. I'm gonna get stuff with this cancer treatment -- a mask, a taped mark on my chest,  a reduction of my beard to a goatee and a stomach tube.

These were some of goings on in my second visit to Dr. Dean Davis' office by Mercy Hospital as a follow up to the first visit that got interrupted by my trip to the ER for nine hours. We all had a good laugh.

This little glob of cancer I have in my throat -- wife Mary says it looks like a white mushroom -- will likely be treated with radiation from Dr. Davis and chemotherapy from Dr. Anthony Ciarolla, who I will meet on Monday.

The mask -- formed by heating a white netting of thermal plastic that's bordered by a blue piece of wood on three sides -- is intended to keep my head still so they zap the cancer and not, for example, my wagging tongue.

A cheery therapist named Lorri, who says I have a perfect neck (for cancer treatment) and pretty blue eyes, fitted me with the mask. We will take a picture of it to show in future blogs. The nose looks a little witchy, but it will help me breathe better.

Lorri became the first woman who ever shaved any of my chest hair. We will always that.

It was to put a quarter-sized piece of clear tape on my chest to center me on the machines.

There's other marks on the blue mask frame and I have shoulder braces to reduce any nervous wiggling.

I got to lie down in a simulator and, later, a CAT scan with all this stuff to prepare me for the real thing.

Dr. Davis answered some more questions for us. He noted that as the therapy goes on, it will be too painful to swallow food, and the passage way will be too small. So, a surgeon is going to poke a hole in my stomach and insert a rubber-type tube.

We'll have a funnel system for Ensure or any other liquid type stuff to pump in my belly. I'm thinking since I won't be able to taste any of this gunk, I might as well put nutritional stuff in there, like liquid beets or turnips that I would never touch otherwise.

The tube, which will have a plug, will be taped to my abdomen when not in use. This in and of itself won't stop me from playing golf, but the treatment process may make me too weak to do so.  I'm thinking this stuff will be a heck-of-an excuse.

He said I will also lose my beard on my right side. This actually concerns me because I've had this beard since 1974 when a very pretty girl named Susan told me to grow it. She hasn't given me  permission to shave it off (though I haven't seen her much after the few dates we had) so it's been a fixture.

I'm keeping the front of my beard because my chin looks funny.

My boss, Davin, wants a video of me shaving off part of my beard. So we'll try to download that for everyone when the time comes.  I'm beginning to feel like a freakish media event.

But I'm writing all this to demystify this process. I'm lucky that we have an 85 to 95 percent chance of curing this cancer in a relatively short time. 

I have been very gratified by all the support I've received from family, co-workers, friends and people that don't even know me. But I have to tell you, I got a card in the mail that made me cry.

I didn't recognize the return address.  It was from Paige Knowles, a 10-year-old girl I met once on July 4 when she was running a lemonade stand by our church fireworks booth. I wrote about her because after sitting there for hours on several days in the summer heat, she donated her proceeds to the Jamison Children's Center.

She said she and her family are going to pray for me. I have never been so deeply touched by such a young child.

 

Stay tuned on this one. Extreme unction is a sacrament of prayer for the seriously ill or dying; also known as the Last Rites.

 So yesterday at 8:30 a.m. in quite good humor, I go over to the Florence Wheeler Cancer Center by Mercy Hospital for my consultation with head and neck radiation oncologist Dr. Dean Davis. My wife, Mary, came with me. I expected to be back to work by 10. That didn't happen.

Cancer was detected on my neck on Sept. 1. On Sept. 13, I was officially diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the right tonsil. It's about four, by three by two centimeters going from my right tonsil to a node in my neck just below my right ear.

I was wrong in an earlier post saying it was caught in an early stage. It's actually at stage three and Dr. Davis -- showing me pictures of it from a CAT scan on a computer screen  -- said it's probably been growing for up to two years. He said it's very treatable and there's an 85 to 95 percent success rate.

Doris was assigned to be my nurse. She gave me some paperwork about Hard Decisions -- getting affairs in order so everyone knows how to handle medical and financial decisions. An ominous, yet I thought,  not so urgent good idea.

Dr. Davis said my cancer is rare, but it is growing. It may be due to a HPV virus that leads to cervical cancer. (For the record, I don't have a cervix that I know of) So the prevention pills (Gardasil) that Texas wants to give to all pre-teen girls, maybe should be given to a lot more people, he suggested.

Part of my treatment will be radiation therapy. It's where they zap the tumor to make it shrink. I'm told that people lose weight in this process because their throat gets sore and they can't eat as much. They're telling me to fatten up. I can do that. I have skills.

Dr. Davis wanted to get an inside look at my cancer so he puts this little rubber hose up my nose and begins to poke around. This is the same tube that my ear, nose and throat doctor, Satya  Arya,  used about 10 days ago with some Novocaine to deaden the pain.

The next time we'll use Novocaine. This didn't feel good at all. Dr. Davis took it out, but I began to feel very dizzy. When a drop of sweat went from my forehead down off my nose, I was pretty sure this wasn't a good thing.

My whole upper body broke out in sweat, A minute or two later, I heard Dr. Davis in a loud voice say, "Steve! Steve!"

My wife told me later that my eyeballs went up into my head, leaving only the whites. I know that's one symptom of a heroin overdose, as I saw it in Seattle in the father of a 15-year-old prostitute who was murdered by former Kern County sheriff's deputy David Keith Rogers 20 years ago. Rogers is on Death Row for killing two prostitutes.

But I don't do heroin. I barely do St. Joseph's Aspirin for Children.

As I wake up, I'm thinking this would be a good time to upchuck. I was very light headed. They had a handy plastic-lined trash can. A few drops later, I was done.

Davis asks if I'm feeling better. Usually I do after a good pippyup, but not this time. My eyes close. I can hear, but I'm on shut down.

He tells my wife I had a vaso-vagal response (fainting) and I should be okay in just a minute. He thinks the poking touched the vagus nerve in my neck which automatically decreases the blood flow and heart beat. (my heart beat went from about 70 per minute to 39)

I want to get better. I don't want to be a wimp. But I am no longer in control. I notice my hair is matted down. I am now both limp and unattractive.

The doctor starts talking about taking me to the emergency room at Mercy, but he still thinks I'll come out of this. He tries to reassure Mary that I hyperventilated and this is a normal response. As time goes on, he says this has never happened in his 20 years of practice. (oh, good, now I'm a freak).

He keeps talking saying at one point, "I scope him today and almost killed him." He immediately takes that back, recognizing those words probably aren't in the training manual.

They move me to a reclining chair. I get a blue pippyup bag for my next episode. Then they load me onto a gurney. I can hear what's going on, but I can't open my eyes.

My wife, Doris the nurse and another nurse start rolling me outside to go to the ER. We get to one point and they say there is a truck in the way. Where the hell am I? Truxtun Avenue? How does a truck get in the way? (I learn later he was unloading stuff at the back of Mercy by the ER, and he moved the truck).

They wheel me to the a curtain-lined corner of the ER. For the next five hours, I'm basically out of it, although I did take a trip to get some chest X-rays.

Dr. Davis came over to visit. He tells the ER doctor that he thinks my tumor is impacting my vagus nerve and that's what's keeping my heart rate low. He thinks steroids will help by shrinking the tumor. I'm thinking, "Cool. Will this help me hit my golf drives farther?" And, "Now I have something in common with Barry Bonds."

At about 2 p.m., Nurse Pretty Blue Eyes (Diana) shoots me up with steroids. This is the beginning of my recovery. So Dr. Davis knows how to knock them down, but also how to bring them back up.

Meanwhile, Pat Stevens, a Mercy volunteer and member of All Saints Episcopal Church (this is where Mary and I go to church, settling on it a couple years ago because I like having all the sacraments present), sees Mary and asks what she's doing there.

The two ladies chat. Pat calls Fr. John Riebe who shows up a little later. Meanwhile, I continue to go in and out of sleep.

Fr. Riebe does what he's trained to do. He prays with the ladies and then over me. It's now about 4 p.m. and he asks if he can anoint me with oil.  That's code for extreme unction or the last rights.  I ask for Penzoil, my favorite. Apparently you're not supposed to joke about holy oil.

I later explain to Mary that you can get the last rights without it being your last. It's like communion and confession, you can get them anytime you feel the need. The cool thing is all your sins are forgiven.

That's a handy state to be in should I leave the living. But my immediate need was I had to go pee.

The nurses had removed my sweat soaked shirt, shoes and socks, so nurse Rob got me some blue ankle socks with rubber bottoms. I make my first of three trips to the bathroom. I comb my hair, feeling bad for the people who had to see me ugly for so many hours.

Nurse Doris from Dr. Davis' office came back to check on me. She said Dr. Davis was a bit unsettled about my reaction. Well, good, makes two of us.

In the small world department, my main nurse was Heather. She and her husband, Courtland, are good friends with Californian design editor Glenn Hammett, who takes 50-mile bicycle rides with Courtland and plays a lot of golf with me.

I've had nothing to eat all day except a banana and IV bags of enhanced water. This near-dying thing makes you hungry so Heather arranged for me to get some hospital food.

A little after 6 p.m., I get some spaghetti, garlic bread, green beans, apple sauce and a green salad. This hits the spot. I begin an immediate improvement. Heather and I decide that the next time this happens (hopefully to someone else), they will send them straight to Rosa's Italian Restaurant on Columbus. Sounds like an excellent plan.

For most of the day they were talking about admitting me to the hospital. But if I can eat and pee on my own, I'm in good shape. So we leave about 6:30 p.m. I'm now in Mary's hands. That's a good place to be.

I call Stuart Sultze with whom I was supposed to play golf today. I tell him I'm too weak to play in the regular Thursday game. This makes him sad. I won about $34 from the guys last week and they thought that in my weakened condition they could win some back.

I told him that winning last week was one the one of the sins that had been forgiven. But with golfers, it really is about the money, not the spiritual welfare.

I'm going back to Dr. Davis on Friday for the rest of my consultation visit. The first one was interrupted.

I will also go to a chemo therapist (I think on Monday) to talk about how drugs can make me better. That's why we're trying to do here. Put my next need for extreme unction a few decades down the road.

 

 

 

 

 

and a second and a third name.

Dr. Satya Arya, and ear, nose and throat doctor who did the biopsy on Wednesday, called me yesterday to tell me.  He put on his somber and compassionate voice. I recognized this from my own news reporting. I appreciated his effort to break it to me gently, but still directly.

So what I have is squamous cell carcinoma of the right tonsil.

I've linked a Google page on one example in a 58-year-old man.

My preliminary research shows this is relatively rare; men get it more than women; it's in the right tonsil much more than the left; and dogs and cats in urban areas can get it.

People who smoke and drink a lot are more prone to get it. I do neither, but I do hang out with dogs in urban areas.

Dr. Arya said the cancer hangs out in a confined area for a long time. That appears to be good news because it seems it can get treated without having to search it out all over the place.

Of course, the next step is to refer me to an oncologist (cancer doctor) who will test me all over the place to find out if there's any other squirrelly cells hanging about.

I'm told radiation and chemo therapy are the preferred methods of treatment. That will do less damage than digging and scraping my neck.

The above link suggests I have a 93 percent chance of survival. That means I get a free t-shirt at the next Relay for Life event.

As a side note, one of the things about talking about all this is you find out other people have had cancer too. One of my relatives and several of my friends — none of whom I had any idea ever had cancer — divulged to me they have had or now have it.

A second side note is that I've been, for no particular reason, donating some money to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society so I don't feel so bad now taking advantage of improvements to treatment.

I'm guessing the treatment isn't going to be much fun. But the alternative seems even more less fun. At least I'll have an excuse to be groggy other than old age.




 

Brief recap: On Sept. 1, my physician's assistant  said a lump on my neck was cancer. I decided to blog about it as a humor relief. There's no indication it's anything to overly worry about,  but it is kind of an elephant in the room. This is the second blog about the journey.

Today (Wednesday) I had a biopsy at the Millennium Center on Stockdale Highway to find out exactly what I have. I'll find out on Monday.

My physician's assistant believes I have a tonsil cancer, and that it spread to the nearest lymph node in my neck where it became a lump. Thus, one of my golfing buddies gave me the new nickname of Lumpy.

This might be a totally funny experience, except that my wife, Mary, is a worrier. She works for an insurance company and is paid to think about worst case scenarios. In a quiet moment, she tends to cry about this lump. I cry with her.

The deal is that any form of cancer makes you think about your life,  whether you've accomplished what you want and whether your ready to go. I have thought about it and I am ready.

Except for Mary. I'm not ready to leave her. In the last two years since I met her,  my happiness shot way up on the wonderful chart.

I want spend a lot more years with Mary. She is the delight of my life.

Though she's a worrier. She wants to come to all my doctor's appointments. I've discouraged that. My sister, Mary Jo, told me I was an idiot and to let Mary do that caring thing she does about better than anyone. So I have officially caved in on that.

I was going to get drugged up today and I had to have someone to be there with me today. I was thinking of hiring out a woman for $20, but Mary came for free.It was a much better deal.

Two days ago, I had some pre-op work done. They gave me an EKG.  Some squiggly lines prove I have a heart.  That's always good to know.

After I got into one of those gowns, paper booties and a surgical hat that makes all men look goofy, I sat down and chatted with Nurse Barbie. Her job was to put a sugar water IV in my left arm right about where my watch has left an obvious tanning line. I leave the watch on when I play golf.

Barbie is a golfer too. I wanted to know if I could play my regular Thursday afternoon golf game. She said the drugs the anesthesiologist would give me would wear off by then. Nurse Barbie suggested my buddies give me one or two strokes. Not sure if my buddies will buy into that, but Nurse Barbie seemed an authoritative source to me.

Dr. Satya Arya went though my mouth (it's okay, he's an ear, nose and throat guy so he's familiar with the territory) and carved out a couple pieces of the lump.

Then I woke up an hour later and they brought in Mary. She rubbed my feet, which was cute and nice, but I'm not sure how that was attacking the cancer problem.

It made me laugh. And when I was wheeled to the back door as Mary drove to the front door to pick me up, that made me laugh too. And now at 10 p.m. Wednesday,  as a still too liquidy Jello sits in our fridge -- some seven hours after it was supposed to be hard enough for me to eat -- I am laughing again.

On the wonderful chart, laughing is just way up there. Mary takes wonderful care of me.

 

Wow, what a weekend. Two golf games, a day at the beach, a couple of movies, some yard work and Mickelson's great victory at the Deutsche Bank Championship.

Might have been perfect weekend if it wasn't for that cancer diagnosis on Friday after work. This'll teach me to go into the doctor to get permission to have a colostomy. He found some other (stuff).

Well, no sense having cancer if you can't joke about it. So you can expect updates as I go through this little experience.

My goal right now is to get through this and walk in Relay for Life cancer survivor parade with my wife so people can applaud both of us, not just her.

Before I get way ahead of myself, I'm scheduled for a biopsy today to confirm that the little lump on my neck (a few cm in diameter) is really cancer.  My physician's assistant who has had the exact same problem is fairly certain that's what it is.

He was very direct with me, for which I was grateful. He said he wished it was something else. I replied, "It is what it is."

I went through CT scans of my neck and chest last week, which defined the lump. You lay on this long bed with your knees up (I thought only women had to put their legs up like that in a doctor's office) as the bed moves you back and forth in this big ring that makes sounds like Star Trek.

I also had a blood test which didn't show any rampant cancer activity.

A chest X-ray oddly enough showed scaring consistent with pneumonia (which I had once) and second-hand smoke. So apparently what they say about second-hand smoke is true — it does affect your lungs.

The only symptom I had before going to the doctor was what I call a low-grade sore throat, which I attributed to sleeping with the ceiling fan on. Turns out the neck growth caused a problem on my tonsil, which not only was mildly irritating, but caused me to snore more than before.

My high priority is to deal with that issue. I'm bad enough in bed without adding a lot of noise.

 I've told my kids and my siblings, all with the message that there's no reason for any alarm.  Right now it's just a few changes in the routine.

The important thing is I shot a 72 on Monday and won $5 from my friend, Stuart. I told you -- it was a great weekend.