Three weeks ago today, I learned that the doctors were concerned that the tumor in my right kidney was cancer, and that they wanted to operate as soon as possible. Today is twelve days after that operation, and I learned that I am now cancer-free. The tumor they took out of me was huge, much bigger than the actual kidney, but examination after it was removed shows that it originated in the kidney. It was cancer, stage 1B, and there are no signs that it spread to other areas.
Three weeks. Not enough time for me to learn as much about cancer as millions of people know. In three weeks, I was in and out of the University of Michigan hospital (main branch, adjacent to the university and to downtown Ann Arbor) three times: once for the surgery, once because I took the wrong medication, and one more time, just to the ER and out again a couple of hours later, with a broken toe.
How did I break my toe? I don't know. Presumably the pain from the incisions in my abdomen kept me from realizing that anything had happened to my toe, until I looked down and suddenly the four smaller toes on my left foot were black and blue all over. That was one week ago today. Now, the toes on both feet look pretty much the same, and the pain from the incisions has faded enough that I notice a slight pain in the middle toe of my left foot.
I feel like I cheated death. I feel like I cheated cancer. I don't feel like a cancer veteran at all, not after all of the people I've known who've lived with cancer for years and decades.
I feel like I've been given another chance at life. I want to live more completely. I've lived more completely at times before. Most notably in the late summer of 1990 in Bonn. I know how to do it.
How? You may be wondering. A moment at a time, is how.
Just three weeks. You better believe I know I'm freakin' lucky.
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