Due to complications which arose during my treatment twenty years ago for non-Hodgkins B-cell lymphoma, I was placed into a medically-induced coma, and remained there for eight days. When placed into the coma, my oncologist informed my wife that my likelihood of survival was about 3%.
When diagnosed a few months earlier, with this stage four cancer, I was sanguine about the challenges I faced, and remarkably uninterested in my survival odds, according to my wife, Carrie. I am an extremely patient patient, one who follows the instructions proffered by the doctor, and I resolved to do what I was told, and believed that would lead to a positive outcome.
The beginning of this adventure was all very civilized; I visited the chemotherapy unit at Abington Hospital, in the Philadelphia area, every two weeks, and relaxed in a recliner, while a cocktail of medications was pumped into my bloodstream via a double lumen port, which had been surgically implanted in my chest. After a couple of hours, I would then go home and doze in a recliner there - fatigue was a constant companion during those days. I adopted a light work schedule, and visited the office sporadically. I remember the evening of my first chemotherapy treatment Carrie had made a bland dinner of chicken, rice, toast, and applesauce (which the kids were very excited about!), prior to which I had taken my anti-nausea pill (nausea is another, very common side-effect of chemotherapy); upon the second bite of dinner, I raced into the bathroom to throw up, all while Carrie was encouraging me to “keep it down,” because those pills cost $400 apiece - it was a scene, man.
Hair-loss is another common side-effect of chemotherapy, and I can recall amusing myself by pulling out clumps of my hair during a staff meeting, and silently offering it to one of my colleagues. Carrie’s response, when I shared the story was, “Yeah, don’t do that - it freaks people out.” I took to wearing baseball caps all the time during my “bald times,” because I was a little self-conscious (the picture above reflects only some of the baseball caps I gathered during that period, which are housed in my office, because Carrie doesn’t want them cluttering up our house). One of my colleagues, a Black man who shaved his head, saw me in the office one day, and said, “Take off your cap.” I dutifully removed my cap, and he surveyed my head from several different angles, before proclaiming, “You are the second-sexiest bald man in the office.”
Warning: This paragraph contains content which may not be suitable for sensitive readers. One of the most painful experiences of my chemotherapy journey was the development of very painful hemorrhoids, a result of chronic diarrhea (interesting, the similarities of the spelling structure of those two quite objectionable medical terms: both with rare “double R’s,” followed by a silent “H”, which upon reflection sounds more like the name of a ranch - '“Welcome to the ‘Double R - Silent H’ ranch - Cookie here will set you up with a nice plate of beans cooked over the open fire”), and which required that I visit a doctor to have them lanced (are you picturing a knight in armor on horseback, wielding a long pole-sized weapon?). Yes, the procedure is as painful as it sounds - I screamed like a little girl (no offense intended to little girls).
Lymphoma recurrence is apparently very common, inasmuch as the human body has lymph nodes throughout, which proves to be an efficient distribution system for things like disease. So, even in the face of ongoing chemotherapy treatments, I was experiencing symptoms, such as night-sweats, indicating a recurrence of the cancer. I sought a second opinion, from a respected cancer physician, who recommended a more aggressive form of chemotherapy. One of the two oncologists suggested that we, “Kick it up a notch,” a catchphrase popular at the time with celebrity chef, Emeril LaGasse. We kicked it up a notch; and, that treatment regimen is the one that severely kicked my ass - I experienced a sepsis, a very dangerous blood infection, with oftentimes fatal consequences.
My wife and kids were out of town, ten hours away, and I had gotten up very early on a weekday morning to play in a charity golf tournament sponsored by my employer, The Philadelphia Inquirer. I returned home about 2:00 in the afternoon, and promptly crashed, sleeping soundly until the next morning. I woke up with a massive headache, and went to my scheduled appointment with my oncologist, Dr. Marc Chernoff. After we chatted briefly, Dr. Chernoff directed me to the Emergency Room at Abington Hospital, where they attempted to alleviate my headache pressure. The last thing I remember was asking for Tylenol. Dr. Chernoff later indicated that he decided to send me to the E.R. because my baseball cap, which was usually well-positioned, was a bit askew; pay attention, medical residents - “askew baseball cap” is now an accepted symptom to be on the lookout for.
I woke up some hours later, in a hospital room I didn’t recognize, surrounded by what seemed to be dozens of doctors, peppering me with questions about my physical and mental condition, while I watched Tiger Woods begin to stretch a lead in whatever tournament was being played at that time. I enjoyed a visit from a neighbor, Terri Mockaitis, and her daughter, sent by Carrie in her stead, to offer comfort, and to assess my condition. Terri reported to Carrie that I seemed to be in good spirits and coherent, in spite of the frenzied medical activity occurring around us. Perhaps we were both oblivious to the frantic preparations underway to “crash” all my vital organs, and place me in a coma.
I had a constant stream of visitors, including my wife and children, and my parents, and several colleagues, none of whom I can recall seeing, since I was nothing but a mass of flesh connected to tubes and wires - no cognition whatsoever. Carrie related that one of my visitors was my first boss at The Inquirer, Joe Chandler, a longtime Inquirer employee who had started as a truck driver there years before, and who was one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet; Joe had become quite active in his local Catholic church, and had become a lay-preacher of sorts. Carrie reports that she left Joe with me, and observed that he held my hand for a half-hour or more, softly talking to me the whole time, and then gently passed my hand to her as he left. It was a day or two later that I began to regain consciousness. I never asked Joe what he talked to me about during that time - I suppose that reinforces Carrie’s theory regarding my lack of curiosity about my “death.”
My next recollection was of beginning to awaken a week after Terri’s visit, although time had been suspended for me. I was puzzled to learn that Tiger had won the tournament I was just watching, a week ago. Apparently, my survival odds increased with each passing day. I was ensconced in the intensive care unit (ICU), lying prone in a hospital bed, unable to move at all. Perhaps it was the effect of the heavy-duty drugs, including morphine, which caused me to wonder, in my semi-conscious state, why the handful of doctors and nurses gathered outside my glass-enclosed ICU room couldn’t see me lying on a gurney at a loading-dock, and wouldn’t simply come and retrieve me, and bring me inside. As I suggested, those were some powerful drugs at play there.
After regaining consciousness, I was released into a rehabilitation unit, where I underwent physical and cognitive testing, to determine the potential toll the adventure had taken on me. Others in the unit were either ninety-years-old, or sixty-years-old, having a knee replaced. We were encouraged to socialize with each other, rolling around the floor in our wheelchairs to dinner, and to exercise class - it was very depressing, particularly as a Fourth of July weekend was looming - I just wanted to get the hell out of there.
In order to secure my release, I had to prove that I was capable of surviving on my own at home, so I needed to prove that I could remove dishes from the dishwasher, and place them on a high shelf in a cabinet, and that I could walk the length of a hallway, unaided, and that I could recall things in order (you know, the “Man, woman, person, camera” thing). I protested that I wasn’t allowed to empty the dishwasher at all, because I, ‘didn’t do it right;’ and as I attempted to walk the hallway, the nurse asked me if the “clown shoes” I was wearing were my shoes - I told her that I had never laid eyes on them before - they were quite stylish, “Chuck Taylor Converse” tennis shoes, which Carrie had bought for me as a rehab gift, but they weren’t conducive to, you know, walking.
In any event, I was able to return home before the holiday weekend, and commenced my rehabilitation there. I spent a lot of time dozing in the recliner, and walking in our pool, and was eventually able to walk a block outside - that was a big step for me. It seemed as if we received gifts of fruit arranged like flowers every single day - perhaps fruit was good for me during my recovery (there’s that lack of curiosity again). And friends and neighbors brought casseroles to us for weeks.
Once I completed my chemotherapy regimen, I was able to have the double lumen port removed from my chest; that process was not so much painful, as it was bizarre - the doctor was rummaging around in my chest to grab the mass of rubber tubing, in order to rip it out of my chest. . .inches away from my face, sans anesthesia. Yikes!
Shortly after returning home, I was sitting at a table in my backyard, and, although I am a scotch drinker, I was enjoying an Absolut Peppar vodka; I admit that the only reason I liked the Peppar vodka was that it allowed me to deploy a jalapeno-stuffed olive in the drink - you can’t do that with a scotch. Soon, neighbors wandered over to join me and my wife, and to welcome me back home. I offered Peppar vodka all around, touting its glories, as if I was earning a commission on its distribution, and after about a half-hour I noticed that my neighbor, Len, wasn’t downing his vodka. He admitted that he thought it was the worst thing he’d ever attempted to drink; I directed him inside my house in order to secure a scotch, and properly cleanse his palate.
I could see that another neighbor, Kevin, was staring at me intently as I spoke. I asked him if he wanted to know if I saw a bright light at the end of an extremely white hallway; he seemed to suggest that he did. The fact is, I did not experience that sensation - only the gurney on the loading-dock thing. Sorry for disappointing you, Kevin.
My fervent belief, which is likely not supported in any way by medical science and research, is that, although spending eight days “disconnected” was quite a traumatic experience, it was a very powerful event which cleansed my body of everything, including all remnants of the cancer. I don’t recommend it, but it seemed to work out for me. The only “C” word used by oncologists is, “cancer” - they don’t use the word, “cure,” settling instead for the less-definitive, “remission.” And, I am currently celebrating twenty years of remission.
So, that is the story of my death, twenty years ago. From this vantage-point, I’m now able to examine the impact it has had on my life. I’d like to think that I have properly thanked all of those people who provided me with love and support during my journey back to life, because my mother would have been horrified if I had not (my mother once gifted me personalized stationary for Christmas, in order that I could write thank-you notes to all those who had provided me with Christmas gifts; was I supposed to write her a thank-you note for the gift of the stationary? That’s very confusing for a youngster). The list of those to whom I am very grateful (my apologies for inevitably neglecting some on this list - unintentional, I assure you), include:
My wife, Carrie
My three children: Tim, Patrick, and Emily
My parents, Bob and Cindy (both now deceased)
My siblings: Dave, Jim, and Kathy, and their spouses, and their children
My in-laws, Kurt and Pam Krueger
My brother-in-law, Bill Goldsmith, my sisters-in-law, Susan Gross, and Penny Anderson, and their husbands, and my nephews
My employer, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and my colleagues there, including Chuck Champion, and Pat Noonan (a non-smoker tragically felled by lung cancer)
My oncologist, Dr. Marc Chernoff
The nursing staff and residents and other staffers at Abington Hospital
My neighbors, including Terri Mockaitis, and her lovely family
Joe Chandler
Both of my parents have died within the last couple of years, each in their upper 80’s. My mother died very suddenly while sitting at the edge of her bed, watching Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune before dinner, but I was able to spend time with my dad in his final weeks, including holding his hand and talking softly to him as he breathed his last. I dismissed the importance of being with him at the end, given that he appeared to be unconscious, but Carrie encouraged me to be there with him, and she and my oldest son, Tim, both joined me at his bedside, while we connected him with his children and grandchildren on the phone to say goodbye to him. There appeared to be flickers of recognition at times as we held the phone to his ear, particularly when my daughter, Emily, spoke to him, but I cannot be sure. I do know that being there with him at the end was truly a profound experience.
Have any of these experiences with death changed my personal outlook or perspective? Or, caused me to, “live every day to the fullest?” I don’t think so. Seeing Terri’s mother-in-law (who was beginning to exhibit signs of dementia) a few years after my death experience, at her granddaughter’s wedding, she stared at me, wide-eyed, and exclaimed, “We thought you were dead!” Mark Twain was said to have responded to reports of his death by saying, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” I don’t recall how I responded at the time, but given nearly twenty years now to craft a response I would have declared, “I was dead. . .but I’m better now.”
Congrats on 20 years of remission Daddy-O!
What a story. So glad you came thru and enjoying cancerversaries every year.