Not the typo experience I care to have again...

Yesterday found me back at Roswell for my pre-op procedures (instructions, blood test, meeting with the anesthesiologist, etc.) I also was having yet one more look at that worrisome spot on my rib that turned up on my original bone scan.  The doctors have continued to say "it is probably nothing....but let's have one more test." It has unnerved me since it never seems to quite be eliminated as a problem. I was injured there on a malfunctioning ride at Six Flags many, many years ago and they are guessing that is what is showing up.  So yesterday Roswell had ordered one more CT scan and looked at both my chest and abdomen again, still trying to assess whether the prostate cancer has spread.  (If indeed it is in my ribs, then it is probably elsewhere.) I had the CT scan in the morning, and then met with the Urology Dept. in the afternoon.  The doctor came in and said that the scan had turned up a lesion on my lung that looked as if it could be cancer.  He said it was actually unrelated to the rib question which had come back clear (finally.) He said he would go and meet with the radiologist because they may want to delay my surgery and biopsy this spot on my lung.  He told me it was only about a centimeter and possibly too small to biopsy so then he wasn't sure what they would decide to do.  So once again, I found myself, sitting in a doctor's office starting to mentally plan my funeral.  After what seemed like an eternity, he came back in and apologized saying the report had a typo, it was supposed to say "Lesion not indicative of cancer" but the NOT had been omitted.  What a difference one tiny word can make.  It was an unpleasant experience, and yet one more reminder of how much worse this all could be.

So now I am back on track for next week: I'll have the surgery on Monday and if all goes well, come home on Tuesday.  I probably won't blog again until I am on the other side of this.  So thanks in advance for your prayers.  Happy New Year and love to all...

Faithful friends who are dear to us gather near to us once more

I was already in a fantastic mood last Thursday: Samantha and JonDavid were in Syracuse visiting my niece and picking up Anthony at the train station; it was the next to the last day of school; the Christmas season was in full swing, we’d gotten a fresh snow; and by the time I went to bed that night, all three kids would be under my roof again.  Thursday also brought my favorite chapel of the year when the Academy students gather by language groups and sing “Silent Night” in their native tongues.  Our chaplain had asked me to play Santa again so I had to hustle in and out of a Santa suit, adding to the craziness and joy of the morning. 

The next period after chapel I was supposed to meet with my seniors but was feeling bad because I had not even had time to get an agenda ready.  I ran down to the auditorium and found it unusually full, when it was only supposed to the senior class and me in there.  When I saw my friend Janyce Smithley and the National Honor Society members on stage I realized she must be announcing the new members which had been selected that week.  I felt bad that JonDavid wasn’t there since I knew he was going to be inducted.  I didn’t have my cellphone with me—since the Santa suit has no pockets. I’d left it lying on my desk, so I ran back down to my room to get it and text JD.  On my way back, Vince (our headmaster) appeared in the hall and motioned me that I was wanted in the auditorium RIGHT AWAY! Amazingly I still didn’t suspect anything, except that probably Janyce was going to pull some kind of stunt about JonDavid being absent and call me up instead.

So it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that the whole assembly was for me! Even sitting up on stage, I still didn’t quite get it.  Janyce played a funny video about our Coke vs. Pepsi war (I decorate my room with Coca-Cola paraphernalia and the students love to joke about it and tease me about my aversion to Pepsi, usually with Janyce as the ringleader. I sat up there thinking to myself, “Did Janyce really somehow convince the school to have an assembly as a practical joke?!!” Then the video she was showing turned serious with the students wishing me well and telling me they were praying for me and having nice sentiments to share about me and it finally dawned on me that they were probably going to pray for me because I would have my surgery before we saw each other again.

So by the end of the video message, I was already choked up before they presented me with a great big cardboard check representing the $1411 they had raised by collecting money around the school for me.  The thought of all of those students and colleagues digging into their pockets to help me out is so precious to me.  Everyone left that day with matching blue bracelets that say “Pray for Dr. Nick.”  I was reminded anew that if I had to go through this cancer adventure, I am so glad it happened while I am at the Academy.  I’ve gotten notes of encouragement, little gifts, visits, offers for help, and lots and lots of prayers. They were all even prepared to take turns covering my classes and driving me for radiation treatments, if I’d needed that.

My heart is so full of gratitude.  My route to Houghton Academy was so circuitous and serendipitous (a last minute offer, to teach outside my discipline, at a place I wildly misunderstood and never had any interest in joining, all under very odd circumstances) I realize now that it had to have been a God-thing. He knew this was where I needed to be as I went through this ordeal.  I am deeply grateful to Him and to my Academy family.

The hopes and fears of all the years...

Last night brought a twinkling, sparkling drive home from Buffalo past a cascade of Christmas lights displays--ranging from simple to elaborate and from classy to tacky--but I loved seeing them all and appreciate everyone who makes the effort.  My earliest Christmas memories begin 50 years ago in Indiana.  I remember the Christmas of 1964 as the first one when I grasped the magic of the season.  I remember visiting downtown Fort Wayne with carols piped through the decorated streets, the animatronic window displays, and big snowflakes softly falling.  The song “Silver Bells” still takes me back to those days.  I also have a vivid memory of driving around in our old 1950 Pontiac (it had been Aunt Nell’s and Grandpa B gave it to us.) The interior height of those old models was high enough that I could stand in the back and watch out the windshield at the nighttime snow rushing at the headlights so that it looked like we were heading into hyperspace (about 13 years before we knew what hyperspace was.) We were going to a church Christmas dinner where there would be enormous piles of good food and Christmas cookies as well as toys and candy for the children.  All of a sudden Christmas became so unimaginably exciting and magical to me.  I’m sure my dad was complaining about driving in the snow at the time, but it didn’t dampen my spirit a bit.  Indeed my Christmas spirit has remained quite high and childlike for the five decade since. 

Our family also loved to drive around and look at Christmas lights in the City when I was a boy. It seems to me as I look back on it now that nearly every home in Fort Wayne decorated with exterior lights. During the energy crises of the 1970s, outdoor decorating for Christmas fell into disfavor and I believe was even banned at one point. And it seems as if it has taken a long time for it to come back into fashion.  True, I don’t especially love the giant inflatables, but I love the spirit that leads people out into their yards on cold December Saturdays to brighten up the bleak midwinter, no matter what their decorating tastes.

For some reason I am writing about a different and happier “C” this week:  Christmas instead of cancer. I think I need a little Christmas, right this very minute.  There is something about having had to stare death in the face for a few weeks this fall that has made this particular Christmas more special to me: the lights glow brighter, the carols ring happier, the memories and the friends grow sweeter.  And indeed that is the heart of the Christmas narrative that we celebrate with lights and song and gifts and cookies: the baby born in Bethlehem came to meet the hopes and fears of all the years.  The year ahead seems to have more hopes and fears than usual for us, but as usual, and the lights of Christmas will guide us on our way.  God bless us everyone.

I get by with a little help from my friends…

In our three decade friendship (1984-2014) Jan Nelson and I have consumed approximately enough sugar to fill the Grand Canyon. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Jim White’s Mother’s Apple Pies, our Hershey World Tour/Pig-A-Thon, Ice Cream, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Oreos….you name it; we ate it. So when I stopped eating sugar after my cancer diagnosis, I was afraid it may alter the very sweet foundation of our friendship, especially with Jan coming to visit for Christmas.  Imagine how my tears flowed when she posted on facebook that she is also giving up sugar in solidarity with me.  “I’d shave my head for you if you were having chemotherapy, so I figure, why not give up sugar for you?”  How dreary my life and world would be without friends like Jan and all of you….How would I ever get through something like this?

There is something that is so precious about friends for the whole journey.  Friends who knew us as kids, young adults, middle-agers….well, let’s just stop there.  But along our life path, it is also lovely to encounter new friends as well.  I decided to pursue my treatment at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, one of the premiere cancer research facilities in the world.  And so it was recently that I found myself sitting on an examining table on a Friday morning, in my underwear….nervous….a little cold…and a lot wishing I were anywhere else.  I knew I would be seeing several more doctors that day.  How do I put this delicately?….This whole ordeal has meant becoming intimately acquainted with a lot of doctors.  Let’s just leave it at that, shall we? But before the procession of doctors began, a tall, smiling African-American gentleman strode into the room, greeting me very warmly and said, “I’m not here to examine you, to sell you anything, to convince you of anything.  You are going to meet lots of people today concerned about your medical needs.  I’m here to check on how the rest of you is doing.”  He introduced himself as a patient advocate and he told me that he himself is a survivor of prostate cancer, and that my doctor (Dr. Guru!) is also his own doctor.  He told me about his journey, gave me his email and phone number and told me to call him anytime and for any reason. He told me about prostate support groups that meet in Western NY, and then he put his hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes and told me I was going to be OK.  From that moment to this, I have felt almost no anxiety about my surgery, my cancer, or my situation.  What a marvelous position and how well suited he is for it!

So whether you are a recent friend, or like Jan, have been putting up with me for decades, I cherish you and am so grateful for all of your support, concern, cards, prayers, and love.  All of the anxiety I had been feeling about this has abated.  Some days pass by now and I barely even think about it. I can only attribute it to all of the love and prayers from my loved ones. Everyone at the Academy has been so wonderful and supportive. One day last week after class, Bernice & Nonye--two lovely new students from Nigeria--came up and said “We just want to tell you, Dr. Nick, that we love you and are praying for you!”

I took a brief break from my rigorous anti-cancer diet to enjoy Thanksgiving day with my family, but now am back on the straight and narrow.  My mom sent me Max Lucado’s book You’ll Get Through This and I have started to read it over the break.  His mantra for the book is “You’ll get through this.  IT won’t be painless. It won’t be quick. But God will use this mess for good.  In the meantime don’t be foolish or naïve. But don’t despair either. With God’s help you will get through this.” Thanks to all of you that are indeed "getting me through this."

I WILL SURVIVE!

At first I was afraid, I was petrified….

I have become all to familiar with my doctor’s phrase “I wish I had better news….” That was what he told me when he called me with the results of my second blood test showing that my PSA had risen significantly in just three months.  He said it again when he called me with the results of my biopsy.  Cancer seems to be a journey that starts out bad and then just keeps getting worse.  So when I went to meet with him for the results of my bone scan and CT scan, I was terrified but hardly surprised when he once again said “I wish I had better news…” But when he started to tell me again the results of my biopsy, I realized,--in between heart palpitations--that he was mixed up about where we were in the process.  It is, of course, understandable since he sees hundreds of patients and tries to handle my case via telephone when he can due to my long commute to Rochester.  He apologized and then dug out the results we were supposed to be going over which in fact included the “better news” we’d been hoping for.  Finally one of the tests went my way. It also, sadly, seems that nothing is ever unqualified with cancer.  There is “one spot on one rib” that looks suspicious but "is probably nothing," and then there is the disheartening statistic I read in the prostate cancer guide he gave me which is that Bone and CT scans miss cancer about 10-20% of the time.  All of which add nicely to the nagging worries I feel in the night when I can’t sleep.  “What is that weird ache/pain? What is that sensation? What does cancer feel like?.....”

Alright now go, walk out the door, just turn around now, you’re not welcome anymore…

So I’m going to start off the New Year (1/5/15) by having the cancer (and my prostate) removed by a tiny robot inside me.  Perhaps this could be the plot for a new Disney movie?  Weirdly, the doctor isn’t even standing over me…he is seated nearby at a computer!  Isn’t that wild? I will be the hospital just for an overnight and then need to recuperate at home for about two weeks.  I’m happy because this lets me finish the semester and enjoy the Christmas season and having the kids at home.  January is a little dull anyway, so I will liven it up with some robotic surgery.  Anthony and Samantha will be home for part or all of my recovery, so that will make it easier also. 

I WILL SURVIVE!

So, I am reminding myself that I survived getting a PhD; I survived cancer in 1994; I survived getting thrown under the bus by my erstwhile alma mater; and I survived a year of being unemployed and uninsured, so I am also going to survive this!  

Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side….

It is hard to underestimate the strength and encouragement I have felt since announcing my news on facebook.  So many messages, prayers, cards, phone calls, words of encouragement, from all over the country, and even around the world. I tucked some of my favorite phrases from all of you into my memory and I recite them to myself whenever I get scared: 

• God's got this!
• Cancer bites the big weinie!
• Jedi Hugs
• You are officially at the top of my prayer list.
• Your name is on our refrigerator door.
•  We've got your back.
• You will have a mighty army lifting you up.
• You are surrounded by a great community of faith
• Cancer sucks: Kick its ass, Dr. Nichols!
• Your prayer warriors are girding ourselves for battle.
• We are with you every step of the way.
• Big hugs and sloppy kisses!
• Go after it Tim, our world needs you.

Thanks so much for hanging in there with me.  You are the best friends a guy ever had….