Breathtaking

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.


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