A decade marked by cancer has reached its end, but not without leaving some scars
Ten years ago this week, I feared I was about to die.
As I was entering what would become my last of six months undergoing chemotherapy for Hodgkin lymphoma, one of the drugs in my regularly prescribed cocktail — bleomyacin —had slowly developed a toxicity in my lungs. The symptoms of which began to show on Halloween night as I was watching the series premiere of, believe it or not, “The Walking Dead.”
By morning, I felt like it.
I had a 103-degree fever and an overwhelming challenge to breathe. I had to again call on one of my oldest friends, Missy Flanders, who had volunteered much of her time to help get me to and from doctor appointments during this trial, to get me back to the specialist’s office one more time.
Soon after I arrived, I left Missy and her young daughter in the waiting room while the docs immediately took a look at me. I was flush and taking in short breaths. They took my temperature and the fever was hanging on ever so tightly. Then they asked me to them a favor: “Run down the hall.”
It was a request that sounded more silly than difficult. In the previous month, another old friend of mine from my youth soccer days, Brett Kirouac, met up with me on an October 2010 Saturday at Piedmont…
