"Doctors said that the test most commonly used to screen for colon cancer doesn't go far enough. They're recommending a procedure that involves photographing the entire colon. I say, don't give CBS an idea for another reality show."
Bill
Maher
*****
Monday
went as planned. Kathryn drove me to Boca Raton Community Hospital to have the
IV Port installed in my chest. I answered a lot of questions that I had been
asked I don’t know how many times before in previous visits to the hospital.
The marvel of the computer age, it seems, hasn’t yet advanced to the point
where they actually look you up on the laptop sitting on the stand in front of
them with all the information on the monitor screen headed: Allan Cole.
I
wanted to tell them, “Allan Cole’s the name. Colon cancer is my game.” But
Kathryn gave me that little frown she has when she knows I’m about to say
something sarcastic. So I desisted. Answered the questions... Had my blood
pressure taken… Heart rate…. And so on. Then I asked Kathryn if she’d get me a
t-shirt made up that read: “I asked God for a sign. So He gave me Cancer.” With
nary a beat, she replied that she didn’t much appreciate my “Sense Of
Tumor.”
Finally they rolled me through the radiology department to a small surgical room. I was
greeted by the strangest sight. Instead of wearing green hospital scrubs the
techs and nurses looked more like a SWAT squad. But, no, that wasn’t quite
accurate. They looked more like a bomb disposal team. They were pulling on
these heavy, dark blue body-armor-style vests with aprons made of similar
material hanging from their waists to their ankles.
I was tempted to ask them what the hell was going on? Had we stumbled into the lair of mad bombers
and before my team of heroes did the IV deed they first had to dismantle a big
damned bomb? Could we be in episode of 24, I wondered. I glanced around, thinking “Where’s Jack Bauer hiding?”
This
drew a few polite chuckles. And it was explained that the outfits were to
protect them from radiation. We were, after all, in the radiology department
with high tech atomic thingamabos everywhere.
I
scooted over to the main table. A largish machine was drawn up. To my
right, they moved in a super-sized
monitor, suitable for watching a James Cameron block buster. I asked them
nicely for buttered popcorn and a large diet coke, but they weren’t on the
menu.
Instead
it was “Happy Hour” time, with a nice mild sedative to be fed directly into my
veins. I confess I was a bit disappointed. In my experience Boca Hospital has
dynamite drugs that can put you directly into the above mentioned James Cameron movie. It was
like being offered a nice white wine instead of Glenlivet on the rocks. But the
sedative would have to suffice and it did more than did the job.
They
put this little half-tent over me, with one side partly open for a nurse to
peer into and tell little deaf-as-a-post me what was going on. I thought about
the times when I was a kid and tried to sneak in some reading when I was
supposed to be asleep. You remember, right? You used a flashlight with weak
batteries, or sometimes a jar of fireflies and tried to get in as many pages of
Huck Finn that you could until your mother busted you.
I’m
pleased to announce that the procedure was a piece of cake, despite being
denied the Glenlivet. A tiny prick of the Novocain needle, some prodding and
pushing and dabbing in the chest area and in about hour they were done,
although the sedative made it feel like
only a few minutes had passed.
So…
Mission Accomplished. The port has been installed and now I’m ready for my
Chemo Closeup, Mr. Demille.
At
this point, it’s probably time to lay in the all important backstory of this
adventure. In other words, how did a nice writer like myself end up in such a
fix?
For
those of you who share my taste for black humor, it may amuse you to know that
this whole deal started out as a remodeling project. Actually, there were two
remodeling projects: interior and exterior.
The
exterior part was a complete revamping of our condo unit in Boca. My brother, Drew, was going to bring in his best crew and basically gut the place.
Bathrooms, kitchens, plumbing, electricity, paint, floors, porch – the whole
enchilada. Only
problem is that it’s pretty hard to gut a place when people are still living
there. So Kathryn and I packed our bags and flew to Los Angeles to visit her
family and mine for a little over a month. We had a great time and when we returned we were amazed at the wonders of our newly transformed home.
Now
for the interior part. Back in October I was working out at the gym when I
suddenly felt woozy and my whole right side went numb. I briefly considered
having somebody call 911, but in my confused state I thought, but wait… How
will Kathryn be able to come see me at the Emergency Hospital if she doesn’t
have the car? So, I dragged myself out to our trusty Honda Civic and drove
home. I couldn’t get out of the car on my own, so I called Kathryn on the cell
and said I was in difficulty and would she please come down and drive me to the
doctor’s office?
Okay,
okay, don’t beat me up for terminal stupidity. It’s a Guy Thing, you know?
Besides, since that day a whole horde of people have gotten in line behind
Kathryn to drub me around the head and shoulders for my dim-wittedness. In the
end, she got me to the doctor’s office, he took one look at me and told the
nurse to call 911.
Long
story short: I ended up with a brilliant vascular surgeon named Dr. Lee. Never mind his bedside manner – he’s a
surgeon, okay? All surgeons have the bedside manners of a Guantanamo Bay
interrogator. He announced that he’s going to attempt to “save your life.” I
had no quarrel with this. Sounded like a grand idea.
It
seems that I my whole arterial system was your basic disaster area. He proposed
three major surgeries over the next few months. First he would do my left side
– not an easy procedure, but not too bad. Then my middle – a biggie - involving
all kinds of things up to and including rebuilding arteries in my groin and…
well, the aftermath was agonizing, okay? I recovered from the first surgery
with little difficulty. The second procedure hurt like hell, and I have a
pretty high pain threshold. Even so, with the help of my genius physical
trainer – Dr. Scott Braun – I got back in good enough shape to make the above
mentioned journey to Los Angeles.
A
week after our return I met with Dr. Lee to discuss the dreaded third procedure
on my right side. As near as I could figure it would start with my neck and
work down to my big toe. But Dr. Lee was all smiles when Kathryn and I entered
his office. He informed us that I had improved so much that I no longer met his
“professional threshold” to perform the surgery. He said to check back with him
in a year – twelve wonderful surgery-free months – and see where things stood
then.
Kathryn
and I left walking on air. Joy! Joy! Joy! Had a celebratory dinner with my
brother and sister-in-law, Vicky, and my dear Aunt Rita. I was reprieved.
Pardoned by the Big Governor In The Sky. Life was, well… you know… Damned
Effing Good.
That
was a Sunday. Monday morning I rose from my bed and promptly fell on the
floor. Tried to get up, but the whole
room was vibrating and I kept collapsing. With Kathryn’s help I finally crawled
back into bed. Stayed there until the room steadied out. Got up in stages,
feeling as dizzy as a poor little Alpha particle stuck in a cyclotron. Eventually, we managed to get to my
cardiologist’s office.
He
examined me and said it had nothing to do with the previous circulatory
problems. He said it was vertigo. Probably traceable to an inner ear problem.
Since I am deaf as hell – from too many years of murdering targets at shooting
ranges – it made sense. (In my youth ear protectors were for sissies. Us macho
muscle heads were supposed to have ear drums of steel.)
Anyway,
we went to see an ear-nose-and throat specialist. There was another series of
tests, followed by an office visit. The
doctor frowned as he reviewed the results and then looked up at me. He said,
“Allan, this has nothing to do with the inner ear or any other part of the
ear.”
He
turned to Kathryn. “Mrs. Cole,” he said, “I advise you to put your husband in
the car and drive him directly to the hospital.”
So
there I was back at Boca Raton Hospital. Sprawled on the gurney, the room
spinning around while endless questions were asked and I was poked and prodded
and declared unfit to go anywhere except a nice room on the second floor.
It
turned out that I was anemic to the Nth degree. I was bleeding internally,
which was the reason I was falling down. It wasn’t the inner ear after all, but a
wee problem of bleeding to death. They pumped five units of blood into me. Then
two more. Meanwhile more tests were being conducted. If I was bleeding, where
was the blood going? And where was it
coming from?
This
was a job for Colonoscopy Man!
Indignities
were performed. First in one direction. Then the other.
Enter
Dr. Andrew S. Ross, one of the best colon and rectal surgeons in the country.
Naturally his bedside manner is no
different than the one mentioned above, except he chuckles a lot. Anyway, the
good Dr. Ross had pictures. In color, no less. He said they showed that I had
two tumors – on opposite ends of my colon.
You couldn’t miss them. They were as red as Satan’s schlong.
And
they both were both… (drum roll)… Malignant!
In
other words, I may have dodged the third arterial surgery, but now I was in for
some really serious shit.
Instead
of removing them individually, Dr. Ross advised it would be best if he could do
it in one go. If he cut the tumors out one by one there was a good chance of
infection and spreading the cancer. He proposed that he remove about two thirds
of my colon - two cuts instead of four - and stitch the ends together. Dr. Ross
didn’t exactly put it that way, but you get the general idea.
The surgery took two-and-a-half hours, which,
I’m told, is not bad. The procedure can require as much as five hours of
chopping and channeling. The recovery was another matter. A small eternity
passed before I was paroled from the tender care of the nurses and doctors at
Boca Hospital.
I
won’t dwell on the experience, which was neither pleasant or without pain. I’ll
just say that most of the next three weeks was spent in a semi-hallucinatory
state, broken by painful returns to what passes for reality in a hospital.
Besides, like they say, many people have it a lot worse. Which I know for a
fact because I have witnessed the aforementioned a lot worse both as a young
newsman and as a CIA brat traveling the world.
A
bright note: a lot of medical people are science fiction fans. One of them
discovered they had the coauthor of the Sten series on their ward and pretty
soon everybody was Googling me and oohing and aahing and giving my ego a
tremendous boost from the indignities that one suffers when they are sick and
helpless.
Early
on Dr. Ross strolled smiling into my room and informed me that the pathology
report said that I was now completely cancer free. Nice, huh? More than nice.
It was fabulous news. But then he returned several days later and instead of
smiling, he was all serious and sat in a chair beside my bed and said there
had been an error in the report, due to the inexperience of the initial technician or some such. I’m not exactly clear on the details, because, like I said, my
mind was living part time in the land of Morpheus.
Anyway,
the upshot was: Everybody who is cancer-free take one step forward. Wait! Not
so fast, Cole!
In
other words it seems that some bad boys were left in my lymph system and
chemotherapy was required to drive them out.
So
that’s how it all came to pass. As Laurel told Hardy, “That’s my story and I’m
stuck in it.”
Now,
all there is left to do is wait until tomorrow morning (Wednesday) when the
Chemotherapy Games Begin. I wrote all about the nasty stuff they’re going to
feed into the above mentioned IV port in Saturday’s edition of Notes From A
Chemo Brain, so I won’t go into it again. Except to say that it’s a two-day, twenty-two-hour
Chemo Fest, so I’ll be staying in the hospital overnight, then getting more
nasty stuff pumped into me on Thursday.
The
next day at home I’ll probably be wondering what the hell they need nasty
chemicals for. Hospital food should be enough to kill any cancer known to
medical science.
Got
bladder cancer? Try the tree stump thingies the menu bills as broccoli.
Melanoma? Check out the gooey substance on your plate they claim to be mashed
potatoes. Lung cancer? We have a rather nice gray and pink substance better
known as meat loaf. Delicious. Really!!! And don’t ask about desert, because
I’m sure the stuff they served up was gathered from snail trails. The Italian
Ice is good, though, so be sure to order several.
I’m
going to spend the rest of today finding some good audiobooks to download into
my various MP3 devices and score a couple of books I’ve been lusting after for
my Kindle.
See
you next weekend when we continue the thrilling adventures of yours truly in
“Notes From A Chemo Brain.”
Meanwhile, I've got one hundred and eights days of chemo to go. But, who's counting?
*****
Here's where to get the paperback & Kindle editions worldwide:
Here's what readers say about Lucky In Cyprus:
- "Bravo, Allan! When I finished Lucky In Cyprus I wept." - Julie Mitchell, Hot Springs, Texas
- "Lucky In Cyprus brought back many memories... A wonderful book. So many shadows blown away!" - Freddy & Maureen Smart, Episkopi,Cyprus.
- "... (Reading) Lucky In Cyprus has been a humbling, haunting, sobering and enlightening experience..." - J.A. Locke, Bookloons.com
*****
NEW: THE AUDIOBOOK VERSION OF
THE HATE PARALLAX
THE HATE PARALLAX: What if the Cold War never ended -- but continued for a thousand years? Best-selling authors Allan Cole (an American) and Nick Perumov (a Russian) spin a mesmerizing "what if?" tale set a thousand years in the future, as an American and a Russian super-soldier -- together with a beautiful American detective working for the United Worlds Police -- must combine forces to defeat a secret cabal ... and prevent a galactic disaster! This is the first - and only - collaboration between American and Russian novelists. Narrated by John Hough. Click the title links below for the trade paperback and kindle editions. (Also available at iTunes.)
*****
THE SPYMASTER'S DAUGHTER:
A new novel by Allan and his daughter, Susan
After laboring as a Doctors Without Borders physician in the teaming refugee camps and minefields of South Asia, Dr. Ann Donovan thought she'd seen Hell as close up as you can get. And as a fifth generation CIA brat, she thought she knew all there was to know about corruption and betrayal. But then her father - a legendary spymaster - shows up, with a ten-year-old boy in tow. A brother she never knew existed. Then in a few violent hours, her whole world is shattered, her father killed and she and her kid brother are one the run with hell hounds on their heels. They finally corner her in a clinic in Hawaii and then all the lies and treachery are revealed on one terrible, bloody storm ravaged night.
BASED ON THE CLASSIC STEN SERIES by Allan Cole & Chris Bunch: Fresh from their mission to pacify the Wolf Worlds, Sten and his Mantis Team encounter a mysterious ship that has been lost among the stars for thousands of years. At first, everyone aboard appears to be long dead. Then a strange Being beckons, pleading for help. More disturbing: the presence of AM2, a strategically vital fuel tightly controlled by their boss - The Eternal Emperor. They are ordered to retrieve the remaining AM2 "at all costs." But once Sten and his heavy worlder sidekick, Alex Kilgour, board the ship they must dare an out of control defense system that attacks without warning as they move through dark warrens filled with unimaginable horrors. When they reach their goal they find that in the midst of all that death are the "seeds" of a lost civilization.
*****
Here's where you can buy it worldwide in both paperback and Kindle editions:
United Kingdom ...........................Spain
Also: NOOK BOOK. Plus ALL E-BOOK FLAVORS.
TALES OF THE BLUE MEANIE
NOW AN AUDIOBOOK!
 |
Venice Boardwalk Circa 1969
|
In the depths of the Sixties and The Days Of Rage, a young newsman, accompanied by his pregnant wife and orphaned teenage brother, creates a Paradise of sorts in a sprawling Venice Beach community of apartments, populated by students, artists, budding scientists and engineers lifeguards, poets, bikers with a few junkies thrown in for good measure. The inhabitants come to call the place “Pepperland,” after the Beatles movie, “Yellow Submarine.” Threatening this paradise is "The Blue Meanie," a crazy giant of a man so frightening that he eventually even scares himself.
*****
*****
I'll be keeping you in my thoughts and sending good vibes your way—all the way from New York—today and tomorrow, Allan! Fingers crossed!
ReplyDelete