15 YEARS AGO I could breathe freely again.
The doctors were pleasantly surprised how quickly I got full access to my lungs back. As I noted earlier, the lymphoma mass had taken up about half my chest cavity and had clamped down on my esophagus so that my airway was down to a fraction of its normal size.
They showed me the X-ray. It looked almost healthy.
This was a huge relief. But I was still feeling tired, feeling bad, but now it was from the chemo. To kill the cancer I had to be poisoned. And I still had a couple of months to go.
TODAY I had to stop and catch my breath.
Gwen and I spent the afternoon cleaning up around home, some long-overdue straightening up and sorting. Still so much left to do.
Cancer free I may be, but I never really got back into good physical shape over these past 15 years. Everyone I know these days has only seen me as a chubby person – they never saw the skinny little guy I was in the Army or college.
Little health problems creep up on me, reminding me of that little 20-year window. But hey, I don’t have to die from cancer – my Dad was the youngest of 13, so looking through the family tree I have my choice of all kinds of maladies: arthritis, cancer, diabetes, heart attack, stroke… and my father was ushered out via the big “C” himself.
For crying out loud, I breathe through a tube every night.
Gwen has her own worries. She’s at the age her mother was when she died of cancer, and reproductive cancers have struck nearly all the women in her family on both sides. A few months she had a bout of congestive heart failure. Being between jobs doesn’t help.
Yeah, I have good insurance now, but I still can’t afford another major health problem. After the hassles of dealing with medical billing and other bills falling behind as my income fell to nearly nothing due to missing work, I decided years ago that I have learned my lesson. Today, if a doctor tells me I have cancer, I’ll have to tell him that I’m sorry, but I can’t afford it right now, so I’ll be a responsible health consumer and not buy any cancer this year.
After all, in America health care is a luxury. If I can choose not to buy a Lexus, I can opt for an economy tumor. Once I get the (non-metaphorical) Chevrolet paid off.
I just hope I’m not asked to test drive a heart problem. Or stroke. Or any thing else. That would be a really rough ride.
(NEXT)
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Floating
15 YEARS AGO, I was a part-time/full-time “floater.”
I started working at Tyson’s Mexican Original plant in Fayetteville, Ark., while I was going to the U of A. They paid well enough that I could work 30 hours a week while going to school full-time. I eventually transitioned to 40 hours, working second shift (3-11 p.m.). After college graduation, I held on to the job until I could find one using my journalism degree. Fifteen years ago, I was still there, and would be for another year.
M.O. made tortilla products (it was a division of Tyson, known for chicken, but, like most megafoods, is diversified) including taco shells and chips made with limestone-ground corn (or “masa”). We were a major supplier for Taco Bell, which kept us very busy during the chain’s rapid expansion in the early 1990s. I started, like most, in a Level 1 job, standing at the end of one of the large machines that cooked and spat out tortillas or chips or shells and packing the product in bags and boxes. After a couple of years, I got a Level 2 job, which was stacking the boxes on pallets. It was still fairly physical, but not as tedious and, of course, the pay was better.
At the end of 1993 I had finally made the jump to Level 3. The department that made stacks of corn tortillas expanded into second shift. This product required big vats of corn to be cooked and ground on site, and “corn cook” (which included the grinding) was a Level 3 job. So that’s what I was doing for a living when I found out about you-know-what.
Just as I was starting my chemotherapy treatments, the plant managers determined that they would not need a second shift for corn tortillas after all. In some industries this would mean being laid off, but there was always plenty to do around this plant. Thus a bunch of us became “floaters,” doing whatever needed to be done that regular employees didn’t have covered. Sometimes it was make-work, other times it was filling in for absent workers. As regular job positions opened up, we would fill them and be taken off the floater list.
Within weeks, the Level 1 floaters found jobs, as there was a fair amount of turnover. But I was Level 3. This meant I was handy to fill in for an absent Level 2 or Level 3 job, and especially to give 15-minute or lunch breaks to those who were there. It also meant they had to make an effort to find me another Level 3 job, which meant I wasn’t coming off the floater list any time soon.
As my treatments continued, I found myself in an unusual situation in regards to the plant’s absence policy. Normally each absence adds up towards a limit you can be away from work over any particular period. But I triggered the “serious illness” clause. Technically every day that I called in was an extension of the original absence for chemotherapy. As long as it was all related to the Hodgkins, I wasn’t in trouble with the company no matter how many days I missed.
The downside was that time away from work was unpaid, on the other hand, I still had a job whenever I could make it in. And the supervisors didn’t mind it when I wasn’t there. An absent floater isn’t missed. When I could make it, I got to float around the plant, usually giving breaks.
Eventually, I’ll get around to a post about the chemo side-effects.
For now I should note that some lingered longer than others. I would feel fine enough to go to work, but then I would get out on the plant floor and feel – well, wrong.
The most pronounced was when I helped at the head the taco-shell line. At that end, big lumps of masa dough would be fed into a machine with big rollers that rolled it out into tortillas. These would be fed on a conveyor belt into a machine that formed and fried them into shells. For the machine to run smoothly and the end product to be right, we had to keep those rollers at a very precise setting to ensure the right thickness and weight of the discs of masa they were rolling out. A few times an hour, more frequently if we suspected something was off, I had to grab some raw tortillas off the line and weigh them. If it was a few grams too light or heavy, adjust the head and weigh again.
So this is not the place for a floater to actually have his head feel like it was floating.
Thank goodness I was usually just giving breaks. I might have to weigh things once, but wouldn’t have to act unless things were way off, in which case I’d be calling a supervisor anyway.
Sometimes I could barely make it for that short period before the regular worker came back. My heart would race, the machinery seemed to speed up out of control, but I’d look over at the next line – its rollers and belt were running at the same speed as mine. Normal. But still, I could feel the panic at the back of my mind, creeping forward.
Finally, one day when I was to work that job the whole shift, I had to beg off after about an hour or two. I said I felt sick, the supervisor understood, and let me drop back to giving breaks. I don’t think he had me doing a full eight hours at the head of those lines again. Part of me was grateful. Part of me felt I had failed. But I understood that at least I had a job.
I could float for as long as I needed to. I wasn’t going to sink.
(NEXT)
I started working at Tyson’s Mexican Original plant in Fayetteville, Ark., while I was going to the U of A. They paid well enough that I could work 30 hours a week while going to school full-time. I eventually transitioned to 40 hours, working second shift (3-11 p.m.). After college graduation, I held on to the job until I could find one using my journalism degree. Fifteen years ago, I was still there, and would be for another year.
M.O. made tortilla products (it was a division of Tyson, known for chicken, but, like most megafoods, is diversified) including taco shells and chips made with limestone-ground corn (or “masa”). We were a major supplier for Taco Bell, which kept us very busy during the chain’s rapid expansion in the early 1990s. I started, like most, in a Level 1 job, standing at the end of one of the large machines that cooked and spat out tortillas or chips or shells and packing the product in bags and boxes. After a couple of years, I got a Level 2 job, which was stacking the boxes on pallets. It was still fairly physical, but not as tedious and, of course, the pay was better.
At the end of 1993 I had finally made the jump to Level 3. The department that made stacks of corn tortillas expanded into second shift. This product required big vats of corn to be cooked and ground on site, and “corn cook” (which included the grinding) was a Level 3 job. So that’s what I was doing for a living when I found out about you-know-what.
Just as I was starting my chemotherapy treatments, the plant managers determined that they would not need a second shift for corn tortillas after all. In some industries this would mean being laid off, but there was always plenty to do around this plant. Thus a bunch of us became “floaters,” doing whatever needed to be done that regular employees didn’t have covered. Sometimes it was make-work, other times it was filling in for absent workers. As regular job positions opened up, we would fill them and be taken off the floater list.
Within weeks, the Level 1 floaters found jobs, as there was a fair amount of turnover. But I was Level 3. This meant I was handy to fill in for an absent Level 2 or Level 3 job, and especially to give 15-minute or lunch breaks to those who were there. It also meant they had to make an effort to find me another Level 3 job, which meant I wasn’t coming off the floater list any time soon.
As my treatments continued, I found myself in an unusual situation in regards to the plant’s absence policy. Normally each absence adds up towards a limit you can be away from work over any particular period. But I triggered the “serious illness” clause. Technically every day that I called in was an extension of the original absence for chemotherapy. As long as it was all related to the Hodgkins, I wasn’t in trouble with the company no matter how many days I missed.
The downside was that time away from work was unpaid, on the other hand, I still had a job whenever I could make it in. And the supervisors didn’t mind it when I wasn’t there. An absent floater isn’t missed. When I could make it, I got to float around the plant, usually giving breaks.
Eventually, I’ll get around to a post about the chemo side-effects.
For now I should note that some lingered longer than others. I would feel fine enough to go to work, but then I would get out on the plant floor and feel – well, wrong.
The most pronounced was when I helped at the head the taco-shell line. At that end, big lumps of masa dough would be fed into a machine with big rollers that rolled it out into tortillas. These would be fed on a conveyor belt into a machine that formed and fried them into shells. For the machine to run smoothly and the end product to be right, we had to keep those rollers at a very precise setting to ensure the right thickness and weight of the discs of masa they were rolling out. A few times an hour, more frequently if we suspected something was off, I had to grab some raw tortillas off the line and weigh them. If it was a few grams too light or heavy, adjust the head and weigh again.
So this is not the place for a floater to actually have his head feel like it was floating.
Thank goodness I was usually just giving breaks. I might have to weigh things once, but wouldn’t have to act unless things were way off, in which case I’d be calling a supervisor anyway.
Sometimes I could barely make it for that short period before the regular worker came back. My heart would race, the machinery seemed to speed up out of control, but I’d look over at the next line – its rollers and belt were running at the same speed as mine. Normal. But still, I could feel the panic at the back of my mind, creeping forward.
Finally, one day when I was to work that job the whole shift, I had to beg off after about an hour or two. I said I felt sick, the supervisor understood, and let me drop back to giving breaks. I don’t think he had me doing a full eight hours at the head of those lines again. Part of me was grateful. Part of me felt I had failed. But I understood that at least I had a job.
I could float for as long as I needed to. I wasn’t going to sink.
(NEXT)
Friday, March 13, 2009
Where was God?
These kinds of journals and recollections often have a sacred component. The writer at some point, or perhaps throughout, expresses how he or she wouldn’t have made it through the harrowing life-threatening, life-affirming ordeal without the help of a higher power. But except for this particular entry, you’re not likely to find that here.
TODAY I am an active member of a church in Indianapolis. I love their style and can get behind what they believe in. This should be no surprise to any who knew me in my youth,* as I was quite active as a boy and teen in my hometown congregation.
15 YEARS AGO, I wasn’t going to church at all.
Drifting away from regular attendance was surprisingly easy, though I’ve been told that once on their own, young adults tend to let such things lapse. I was part of the “religious council” in my Army unit in Germany, but we never did any council meetings and it was mainly a way to get into “religious retreats” which turned out to be thinly disguised Alpine vacations.
During and after college, I was long out of the churchgoing habit and engaged-then-married to an atheist. After the divorce, I was with Gwen who wasn’t churchy either. Also, outside the small-town bubble, it was easier to see the rampant hypocrisy that evangelical Protestants are famous for. Did I really want to be part of that?
Then I got cancer.
If this was a message to “get right with the Lord,” it didn’t come through that way. A few months into my treatment, it did occur to me that I was losing some possible benefits of being in a church. If I had been, there would be the spiritual benefits – people praying for me, visiting, offering encouragement – and the more tangible benefits of fellow members bringing by food or taking up collections to help when money was tight.
Looking at it this way, it didn’t feel right for me to seek a church to join. It wouldn’t be that I had suddenly found religion, but that I was going to use these people for my own comfort. And that didn’t seem very Christian to me.
So, while I was hanging out with fans of Gothic pop culture -- some openly Pagan -- sleeping in on Sundays and going to chemo with nary a prayer upon my lips – was God there?
14 YEARS AGO, in May, Gwen and I went out for Cinco de Mayo at a local TexMex place in Fort Smith (where we lived at the time). I entered the restaurant’s drawing, and -- surprise! -- my name was drawn for $500 in free food. The prize was given to me as a stack of $20 gift certificates (this was in the days before the electronic gift card). I could use one for lunch or a bunch of them to treat my friends.
Within a month I was out of a job.
Over the next several months, as the job search grew more frustrating and finances grew slim, those certificates were a lifesaver. Sometimes we didn’t have enough money for groceries. Sometimes we were just too depressed to cook. Either way, I was incredibly grateful that we had them to help us get through those times.
Just lucky that I had that right when I needed it, right?
Consider also my good fortune that a year earlier, I had not only caught my cancer in an early stage, but also it happened at a time when I had a job with good insurance. I also had an unusual degree of work flexibility (more on this later). I managed to avoid complete bankruptcy, and came out of the ordeal still employed practically like I was before the diagnosis.
Some people would look at all that, and declare that someone was looking out for me.
- - - - -
*What kind of church I ended up in might be a surprise. But that’s beside the point here.
(NEXT)
TODAY I am an active member of a church in Indianapolis. I love their style and can get behind what they believe in. This should be no surprise to any who knew me in my youth,* as I was quite active as a boy and teen in my hometown congregation.
15 YEARS AGO, I wasn’t going to church at all.
Drifting away from regular attendance was surprisingly easy, though I’ve been told that once on their own, young adults tend to let such things lapse. I was part of the “religious council” in my Army unit in Germany, but we never did any council meetings and it was mainly a way to get into “religious retreats” which turned out to be thinly disguised Alpine vacations.
During and after college, I was long out of the churchgoing habit and engaged-then-married to an atheist. After the divorce, I was with Gwen who wasn’t churchy either. Also, outside the small-town bubble, it was easier to see the rampant hypocrisy that evangelical Protestants are famous for. Did I really want to be part of that?
Then I got cancer.
If this was a message to “get right with the Lord,” it didn’t come through that way. A few months into my treatment, it did occur to me that I was losing some possible benefits of being in a church. If I had been, there would be the spiritual benefits – people praying for me, visiting, offering encouragement – and the more tangible benefits of fellow members bringing by food or taking up collections to help when money was tight.
Looking at it this way, it didn’t feel right for me to seek a church to join. It wouldn’t be that I had suddenly found religion, but that I was going to use these people for my own comfort. And that didn’t seem very Christian to me.
So, while I was hanging out with fans of Gothic pop culture -- some openly Pagan -- sleeping in on Sundays and going to chemo with nary a prayer upon my lips – was God there?
14 YEARS AGO, in May, Gwen and I went out for Cinco de Mayo at a local TexMex place in Fort Smith (where we lived at the time). I entered the restaurant’s drawing, and -- surprise! -- my name was drawn for $500 in free food. The prize was given to me as a stack of $20 gift certificates (this was in the days before the electronic gift card). I could use one for lunch or a bunch of them to treat my friends.
Within a month I was out of a job.
Over the next several months, as the job search grew more frustrating and finances grew slim, those certificates were a lifesaver. Sometimes we didn’t have enough money for groceries. Sometimes we were just too depressed to cook. Either way, I was incredibly grateful that we had them to help us get through those times.
Just lucky that I had that right when I needed it, right?
Consider also my good fortune that a year earlier, I had not only caught my cancer in an early stage, but also it happened at a time when I had a job with good insurance. I also had an unusual degree of work flexibility (more on this later). I managed to avoid complete bankruptcy, and came out of the ordeal still employed practically like I was before the diagnosis.
Some people would look at all that, and declare that someone was looking out for me.
- - - - -
*What kind of church I ended up in might be a surprise. But that’s beside the point here.
(NEXT)
Thursday, March 5, 2009
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
TODAY (actually, a couple of weeks ago) in an e-mail from my ex-wife Kathy* I got a sense that she doesn’t remember when exactly I was in treatment for cancer. It seems odd that she might think that we were still together at the time, since she was actually quite out of the loop.
15 YEARS AGO, I got a frantic phone call.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kathy asked in a demanding tone.
My honest answer, which didn’t sound true but was, was that I was hardly telling anyone.
I don’t think it was denial — I was confronting this disease head-on. I think it was something more like pride. I didn’t want to be the kind of person who constantly brought up my condition and my suffering, fishing for sympathy and attention. So I didn’t talk about it to strangers, or friends, or anyone who didn’t already know because I saw them regularly. With close friends we mostly discussed it in the context of scheduling – we can’t get together on this date, I have a clinic appointment.
“The Ex” and what and whether to tell her was hardly on my mind. It did dawn on me eventually that I had to tell her something, as the treatment schedule would interfere with visiting my four-year-old son – not to mention the fact that my strained finances would affect the paying of child support. I was still deliberating this when she called out of the blue, having heard from others about my condition.
The bigger concern, back when I was first diagnosed, was what to tell Mom.
It would be wrong for me to keep this from her, but Gwen and I felt we had to be careful with the news. Mom had buried her husband less than a year and a half earlier – and it was cancer that killed him. But what Dad had was intestinal tumors that spread to the liver; my case was different. So when we told her, I made sure to emphasize that we had caught it early, and the doctors' optimism, that they were even saying “cure.”
That optimistic prognosis was another reason I didn’t make a big deal of it. I wasn’t dying. I knew that, odds were, in less than a year it would all be behind me and I’d be getting on with my life cancer-free.
Not that it would be an easy road getting to that point.
- - - - -
*Not her real name
(NEXT)
15 YEARS AGO, I got a frantic phone call.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kathy asked in a demanding tone.
My honest answer, which didn’t sound true but was, was that I was hardly telling anyone.
I don’t think it was denial — I was confronting this disease head-on. I think it was something more like pride. I didn’t want to be the kind of person who constantly brought up my condition and my suffering, fishing for sympathy and attention. So I didn’t talk about it to strangers, or friends, or anyone who didn’t already know because I saw them regularly. With close friends we mostly discussed it in the context of scheduling – we can’t get together on this date, I have a clinic appointment.
“The Ex” and what and whether to tell her was hardly on my mind. It did dawn on me eventually that I had to tell her something, as the treatment schedule would interfere with visiting my four-year-old son – not to mention the fact that my strained finances would affect the paying of child support. I was still deliberating this when she called out of the blue, having heard from others about my condition.
The bigger concern, back when I was first diagnosed, was what to tell Mom.
It would be wrong for me to keep this from her, but Gwen and I felt we had to be careful with the news. Mom had buried her husband less than a year and a half earlier – and it was cancer that killed him. But what Dad had was intestinal tumors that spread to the liver; my case was different. So when we told her, I made sure to emphasize that we had caught it early, and the doctors' optimism, that they were even saying “cure.”
That optimistic prognosis was another reason I didn’t make a big deal of it. I wasn’t dying. I knew that, odds were, in less than a year it would all be behind me and I’d be getting on with my life cancer-free.
Not that it would be an easy road getting to that point.
- - - - -
*Not her real name
(NEXT)
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