June 4, 2019 -- Happy Rebirthday to Me

When we are young, everything seems bigger and better. I am always amazed at how easily young children are amused.  For those under 6 months, all you need to do is make a funny face or noise and they think you are the funniest person in the world. When we would take Justin to get his JC Penney’s monthly picture taken (he was the first, so this was a requirement, with Jason at number two, not so much) he would literally explode with laughter when they would shake a little stuffed animal off camera.

As we get a little older, we are still easily excited, but it typically takes more than a stuffed animal.  When Justin was four, we bought him a Mr. Microphone for Christmas. For those that don’t remember, this was a handheld microphone that would attach to a boom box or some other radio and act as a mic/amplifier combination. He opened it up and let out a rather loud “Wow!”, like he had just been given a million dollars. After 5 seconds he turned to me and asked, “What is this?”

It used to be easy to get excited, but as we age, it seems to get a little tougher. Dates during the year also seem to have a little less significance. When I was young, there were certain days that were just special.  There were days that stood out, even if they didn’t include presents, the last day of school, the Fourth of July and maybe even Thanksgiving because Grandma would make her special biscuits.  Of course, there were the big days that did include presents. Easter was good because of the Easter baskets, Halloween because of the mega candy bars that we used to receive, not the crappy miniatures that everyone gives out today.

The second biggest day of the entire kid year was Christmas and the excitement leading up to it. The world has changed, and we start thinking about Christmas the day after Labor Day as Hobby Lobby puts up all of their trees trying to get you to bite on the new gadgets.  In the old days, you would make a trip to the corner pop-up Christmas tree lot to get that perfect tree about a week before Christmas. Then a couple days to decorate it and you were in business.

Christmas was great because there was a nice buildup with the Christmas music and the Charlie Brown and Rudolph the Reindeer specials on TV.  However, despite all of that, there was still one day that was even more special, your birthday. It was a day you had to share with no one. It was your day.  My birthday has always been my day. January 16^th has always been special to me. 

Now I must admit that the level of excitement has waned over the years. When I was young, there was literally a countdown to the big day. It wasn’t like we did anything special on that day. Unlike today where there is so much pressure to have some monster party for your kids, I don’t even remember having a kid birthday party growing up.  It really wasn’t that important to me. I knew it was my day and all I needed was a cake and a few presents from my parents.

My birthday celebrations have not changed a great deal over the years, but certainly the level of importance has declined. Yes, I get a little excited deep inside when it is my birthday, but the cake and presents are not nearly as important. I am lucky enough to have both of my children close and the four of us will go out for dinner and that is enough for me.

However, my life changed a great deal just a couple weeks past my birthday 10 years ago. My trip to the doctor for my annual checkup started a chain of events that would change my life like no other event.

When you hear that you have incurable cancer, all the things that seemed so important are viewed completely different. We kid ourselves from the time we can actually reason that there is plenty of time to do whatever you need to do. There is still that chance to make the world a better place, to do that one thing that people will remember you for. When you hear those words, an imaginary clock starts ticking in your head and you begin to wonder how long it will continue with you feeling like yourself.

Within four months I had already received two different chemotherapies and radiation.  I had moved to a second oncologist at the Mayo Clinic and I was about to undergo a stem cell transplant. The hope was the transplant would restart my bone marrow and give me a few more years. On June 2^nd, 2009, I was given a significant amount of chemo to essentially rid my body of the cancer the best it could. On June 4^th, I was given my own stem cells back. The next week and a half was an adventure with my temperature spiking to 104 degrees and me literally forgetting two days even happened. All of those familiar chemo consequences happened, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, lack of appetite and what hair I had left falling out. Needless to say, it was not the all-expense paid two-week vacation that everyone likes to talk about.

So you see, June 4th is my rebirthday. Despite the prognosis at the time and many ups and downs in the last 10 years I am celebrating my 10^th re-birthday (I might have actually coined that years ago. Feel free to use it if you like.  I also created the word elegation, but that is a whole ‘nuther story.)  There have been times in those 10 years I wasn’t sure things were going in the right direction as I am now on my 10^th different chemotherapy. Some have worked, most have not. In the end, they have all petered out at some point.

The medicine I am on now was kind of a last-ditch effort before another stem cell transplant. A second typically doesn’t last very long and doing one in your mid sixties is not nearly as much fun as one in your mid-fifties. However, a medicine that was designed for lymphoma and leukemia is working wonderfully for me. I have never been better. I have been using Venclexta (Ironically created by the company that split from Abbott Labs where I worked for 30 years.) for 14 months and have no sign of the cancer in my blood.  The longest anyone at the Mayo has successfully utilized this drug before it lost its effectiveness is 30 months.  I now have a goal. I love to be challenged.

I want to thank all of you that have put up with my writings for the last decade. Maybe I can get lucky and more drugs can become available and maybe even a cure one day. Then what will I have to write about?