My cancer treatments began soon after my 51st birthday in early November, 2006 and ended in late February, 2007. A hospital bed had been moved into our house and I spent my days watching cooking and travel shows on television (a useless exercise because I was feeding myself canned food through a tube in my stomach and had no idea if I would ever eat again, and I certainly wasn’t planning any vacation trips), and going through mountains of towels as I coughed up the gunk that continually formed in and clogged my throat. Life progresses and things change, however, and within a few weeks I was venturing outside for short walks and drove myself to town to get groceries. One goal was to present myself as healing and improving to my 86 year old mother, who had undoubtedly suffered greatly worrying about me. I began to eat a few things after a couple months, and, being a good Polish woman, she was thrilled when she was able to feed me some potato soup. My wife, Linda, had been on crutches for a bad knee since the late stages of my treatments, and after a few weeks I was able to drive her to her arthroscopic surgery and return a small amount of the care she had shown me the past few months.

A big question mark was whether I would attain the stamina to work, and what sort of activities I would be able to engage in. I went to visit a consulting client out in a new wheat field in early May, when I still had need of a lot of healing and likely didn’t look very robust, and he told me, “Don’t worry about coming out to look at my crops. You need to rest and recuperate. I’ll still pay you and we can visit by phone.” I reassured him I planned to fulfill my duties, but had tears in my eyes from his generous offer. I found myself much more emotional than I had been in the past, greatly touched by everything I experienced. Another activity that I was able to undertake was to attend my older daughter Anna’s college graduation party. I was even able to be useful conversing with a socially inept Spanish professor that I entertained for over an hour so that Anna could have fun with other guests. This party, about ten weeks after treatments ended, was also the first time I ate a complete meal since early the first week of radiation four months before. I was able to fly out to the Front Range of Colorado to attend a board meeting of the farmer-owned commercial baking business that I served on, and renew my contributions, as well as re-join active participation on the board of directors of the local ethanol plant and the board of a prospective wind farm of which I was the president and leader. Of course, I also had two young, adult daughters to parent and a wife to try to be a good partner with. I had a busy life to return to and decided I would just see how jumping back into the various activities went.

One might reasonably ask why I didn’t cut back; why didn’t I engage in triage and kick some things to the roadside? To be honest, I’m not sure. I considered all the activities both important and enjoyable. I also am an incorrigible optimist, and while I was professing agnosticism regarding the remission of my cancer my subconscious was undoubtedly planning for a full, speedy recovery and a long life. In any case, I do remember having the thought that I would revisit the topic of my career after I was completely healed up and had gone through the next several months to learn my capabilities. Why can’t we have it all?

Here’s why. Mayo scheduled me for monthly visits, including various scans, for the next year, In June I asked for an extra visit because of a hard pimple on my neck that wasn’t going away. I was shoehorned in for an appointment immediately, and after first reassuring me that it was unlikely to be significant, Dr. Olsen zeroed in on the hard pimple with a look of concern. Being a dedicated surgeon he pulled a scalpel out of his pocket, sterilized it and excised a small piece of tissue on the spot. There was no need of numbing the area because surgery and radiation had killed all the nerves three months before and my neck was a block of unfeeling wood. He obviously didn’t like the look of the tissue and sent it off for biopsy. Linda and I went to a local park that evening and had a perfectly miserable time waiting to hear the results. Dr. Olsen was also an optimist, and a very confident surgeon, and his obvious concern was very worrying. A return visit the next day confirmed that the same cancer had returned, and Dr. Olsen scheduled a small surgery the next week to excise a larger area. When I left he clapped me on the shoulder and in a resigned tone said, “Good luck, sir.” I had been told many times that they were firing all their ammunition on the big combined treatment that I had completed, and would basically have no shells left to shoot if the cancer came back.

No shells except for cutting more pieces from my body, that is. Because we caught it so early, attributable to my self-exam, Linda’s immediate concurrence and Dr. Olsen’s quick, efficient work, the tiny tumor was cut out so quickly that there was no sign of spread or metastasis. My surgeon felt very confident that he had removed all the cancerous tissue, checking each slice immediately for cancer cells, an ability you have when you work at Mayo Clinic. We were likely less confident than Dr. Olsen, but we went home and delved deeply into life again.

One of the effects of the cancer treatments was the aforementioned secretions that my radiated throat tissue kept producing. During the day this was merely a bother, necessitating a constant stock of towels and tissues to cough into. My throat was restricted to the size of a pea, and the secretions would interfere with both eating and breathing. This was a much larger issue at night. For many months I would be up for 30-60 minutes coughing several times a night, hoping to get five or six hours of fragmented sleep over a nine or ten hour night. Humidity kept the secretions looser and easier to get out, so Linda built a plastic tent around my bed with a humidifier inside so I slept in a fog. Still, I regularly woke up because your brain will not allow you to sleep if you aren’t getting enough oxygen. I would have the most interesting dreams as my subconscious tried to wake me up by changing the trajectory of the dream that was already occurring, so that it could shake me from slumber. There were several recurring themes. One was fire, usually spontaneous combustion of parts of whatever building I was in. If I was in a vehicle in my dream either the road became very dangerous, or the vehicle would suddenly go out of my control and start flying sideways down embankments or trying to climb dangerous cliffs. Another theme was being lost; I would wander endless hallways and go through unmarked doors trying to get out of buildings that had seemed so familiar and easily managed when I entered. The overarching thread was that things were out of control and I needed to do something to regain control, like wake up and start breathing better. Unfortunately, not much upsets me, and I was never worried in these dreams, just confused and perhaps a little peeved that things were going so badly. My stoic Nordic personality runs very deep, it seems. Whether it was my house starting on fire, or my car spinning out of control as it accelerated or finding myself completely lost in a labyrinthine building, my dream self just kept trying to figure things out, until my brain said, “Enough! Wake up you silly SOB!” and I would awaken feeling ill and short of air.

The final story of that first year regards the feeding tube that stuck out of my stomach. By late summer my proficiency at eating was such that the decision was made to take out the feeding tube. When it was installed it was threaded down my throat and out through a hole cut in my stomach. Doing it in this manner allowed a very small incision in my stomach, as the trailing end of the tube had a “bumper” which kept it from coming out through the hole that had been cut. When I arrived for the procedure I was chatted up by the charming, pretty young nurse. She told me they could quickly set up for a minor surgery to enlarge the hole to take out the tube which would entail a partial anesthetic and an overnight stay for observation, or if I was willing to put up with some momentary discomfort they could just pull the tube out, causing the bumper to collapse and come through. I don’t remember exactly how she put it, but the gist was that a big, strong man like me could handle it easily and go home the same day. She was possibly battling her eyelashes a bit, though my memory fails me here. And isn’t every guy a sucker for that schtick? Well, this guy was, and I agreed.

She asked me to go in the next room where a no-nonsense middle aged nurse (the charming young woman was on to other scams) got me a gown and told me to sit in the recliner. I sat alone for a few minutes until a muscular young guy came in. He obviously worked out regularly, his biceps bulging out of the t-shirt he wore, but had little to say. He put on sterile gloves, the other people who had been around disappeared and he hovered above me. He wrapped the tube around his fingers, got a good grip, braced himself, and finally spoke, “I assume they told you this is really going to hurt.” Before I could reply he gave a big yank. Kaboom!!!! The world exploded in my head as I felt like I had been shot, or at least kicked in my stomach by an elephant. The world went black and I quit breathing. The tube (and probably some stomach fluids) came flying out, For the only time in my life I saw the proverbial stars, tried to resume breathing, and assumed there must be a gaping hole in my stomach now, like a cartoon image of a cannonball going through my body. After a couple minutes I could see again and had wiped the tears from my eyes to gingerly examine the damage. I looked down as the middle aged nurse, who had returned to the room, put a glorified band aid over a very small, unimpressive hole. She told me that healing was very quick and asked if I needed anything else in a matter of fact tone. I had to admit that the procedure was very quick, and the pain was already subsiding. She gave me a Tylenol, walked away, and left me to gather my wits, get dressed and leave, booted out so the staff could move on to more important issues.

There are many more stories, but I will leave them untold as I am suspicious they are only interesting to me. For the next several years I settled into a routine, which wasn’t necessarily an easy routine, working around issues with breathing, eating, anemia, stamina and muscle spasms and cramping. People are adaptable, though, and if issues and their “work-arounds” are predictable enough we build them into our schedules and develop that routine. Ten years in I had an episode where my tiny throat got plugged by the husk from a kernel of corn and ended up with a trachaeostomy. Food leakage into my lungs after the trach was put in eventually led to regular bouts of pneumonia caused by bacteria which were becoming drug resistant. A laryngectomy was performed (that story was told in an earlier post “And Then the World Changed”), which meant I lost the ability to speak, so that now I do all my communicating by writing notes, texting, email and a sort of quasi-game of charades I play with gestures and facial contortions. I have probably taken close to 20 trips to ER’s, the past few years, though I admit we pull the trigger on an ER visit pretty quickly now. My mind is always preoccupied with figuring out how to get through the day accomplishing something positive with my beat up body.

But the overarching theme here is NOT that I have a hard life. I have enumerated a few of my challenges not to be pitiful or even worse, to seem noble. The point, very simply, is that it can work. The point is that we can live a good and satisfying life while dealing with some distractions and barriers. It can be bloody difficult, and bloody wonderful at the same time. I have been able to do a spectacular amount of things during the past 17 years. I was able to be a husband, father, and now grandfather (very soon to a third grandchild). I was able to manage my business and continue a career so that we have some resources for our retirement. I was able to help bury two parents, who didn’t have to do that for me, and to be there for the decline and passing of my older sister, Earlene, and my niece, Katie. And now, though my work days are short and sporadic, I am able to engage in my grand retirement project of 200 acres of prairie restorations and hoping to be a vehicle for inducing others to consider my path.

I’ve been able to visit both my daughters while they studied in Europe. I was able to go to India to meet my son-in law’s family, and then again, to participate in a glorious Indian wedding. I was able to dance with my younger daughter at her wedding two years ago. I have held two newborn grandchildren in my arms, am now watching them grow into wonderful human beings, and am giddy with the hope of doing it again very soon with a third grandchild. And I have been able to hold my girlfriend of 43 years in my arms as well, so she can know how much she is loved.

The point, again, to beat it into the ground, is that LIFE IS WONDERFUL!!! Life is enormous! Life has more possibilities than we can comprehend! A person’s life can be a path to love, to heroism, to peace, and ultimately to transcendence. The cancer aftermath could have gone so much worse, as I might not have beaten the cancer, or I could have become an invalid in constant pain. I certainly considered those outcomes, and I accepted them as part of the Faustian deal I was making. Except my deal wasn’t for ultimate wisdom and riches as in the story of Faustus, but for just what I have gotten, seventeen very good years. What have I had to give in return for this second act? My strength, my patience, my stamina and my mindful attention to my body; I simply give everything that I have. But what a deal!!! What a fucking spectacular deal!!! And if I am both lucky and good, after these seventeen years, maybe a few more. We humans are a greedy bunch and I admit that as great as seventeen years has been, I hope to be able to write a follow-up to this post ten years from now. But first, there’s today, and then tomorrow. What an amazing thing it is to be able to look forward to the next morning! I can already taste the first sip of coffee and I can hardly wait.