Cancer Testimony - Part 1

I wanted to blog about the journey that we endured when Mike had cancer. It was March of 2009. I’ll start with some of the details that led up to that diagnosis. I love details, so bear with me...

Mike developed a bad cough after Christmas of 2008. We naturally assumed that he had a cold. Who doesn’t that time of year? In January, he went to see our family doctor for a physical. He mentioned the cough to her, but there didn’t seem to be reason for concern. He went to get checked in February again at the walk-in clinic, after much urging from me. He was told that it was a virus and to drink plenty of fluids.

By March, this deep, wet cough had become quite uncontrollable and was keeping us up at night. He was prescribed T3’s as a cough suppressant. He coughed so much that he would puke. We were beginning to wonder what was going on. But we never really suspected anything serious. One morning Mike drew my attention to a lump that he had noticed on his throat. We kept an eye on it for a few days, then finally decided to get it looked at. It seemed to be getting larger. By this point, he was convinced that going to the doctor was useless, but I was able to make him go. I joked later about this, saying that I saved his life!

He went to Urgent Care by himself on March 25. Upon returning home several hours later, he informed me that they had run several tests on him to determine the cause of the lump. They did a chest x-ray, ultrasound and CT scan all in the same afternoon. That seemed odd to us, knowing that there was waiting lists and appointments for those tests. The doctor on-call mentioned possible causes for the lump, things like thyroiditis and goiter, also related to the thyroid. We looked it up online, and decided that it didn’t sound too serious. For now we waited at home for the test results. We had told our parents about the lump and the tests at this point, but no one else so as not to raise any concerns.

The next day Mike took a call from the clinic telling him to come in immediately and to “bring your wife.” Well, that didn’t sound good. But again, we talked ourselves out of worrying and told each other it was probably nothing. The drive to the hospital was very quiet as each of us was preparing for what the news might be.

On March 26, we waited at the clinic to see our family doctor, Dr. Hesom. When she walked into the room, her face was downcast. She looked at us, shook her head and said, “Oh guys, I don’t have great news...We are 99.9% certain that Mike has lymphoma.”

My brain went numb. I looked at Mike to see if he comprehended what she was saying. We held hands tightly as I asked, “What’s that?”

Dr. Hesom responded, “Cancer. Mike may have cancer.”