God Exists!

I was headed in to the infusion center for my fourth, and last, chemo treatment.  

My fourth chemo series, and the last one of the fourth in that series.  Dammm, was I happy.  And relieved.  It was finally over.

Chemotherapy, if you haven't had the (dis)pleasure, is what they hit you with when you're diagnosed with cancer.  Or perhaps radiation.  Either is bad.  They both suck.

Lung cancer, in my case.  Metastatic Small Cell Lung Cancer, which is the worst, fastest growing, and most aggressive type, they tell me.  Sort of like hearing from yout doctor, "You have ebola.  It's the very worst sort of virus around anywhere.  And there's no cure for it.  You'll die from it within weeks.  And it will be painful.  There's nothing more we can do for you.  Call if you have any questions.  We have a tee time to get to.  So have fun."

The day I got the diagnosis, I went home and Googled "metastatic small cell lung cancer."  Google told me I had 3 or 4 months to live.  Gulp!  I closed the Google app and vowed not to check it again.  So even though my sainted registered nurse wife and I created and managed the first emergency medical service of its kind, and ran it for nearly 40 years, I knew painfully little about cancer.  My knowledge was all centered around kidney failure.  And End Stage Renal Disease.  And treating desperately ill patients who were in need of acute dialysis treatments.  We figured one time we treated about 10,000 patients in those 40 years.  Who would have had little other chance without us.

In short, even though I'd spent 50 years in medicine,, my knowledge about it was half a mile wide and an inch deep.  Except for End Stage Renal Disease.  Which I knew more about than the doctors who treated it.  And even though I played a doctor on TV, the last person I'd ask about treating cancer would be me.  Especially if it was my cancer.

So my oncologist, a really smart 40-something babe who chose to take me on as a patient, mapped out my treatment plan.  She lowered the dose a bit, choosing not to give these aging bones of mine the full wattage.  And put me in the hospital.  

The idea is to kill the fast growing cells.  And the fastest growing cells are cancer cells.  But they also shut down your immune system.  So she customized my dosage to keep me alive.  Thank God.  For if she'd hit me with the full 100% of the normal dosage, I'm sure I'd have collapsed into a heap of protoplasm.  For chemotherapy is the gnarliest, nastiest, meanest, awfulest and most toxic thing anyone can do to you.  It's poison.  And it could kill you if they screw up the dosage.  It's like months of the flu, with body aches, projectile vomiting, diarrhea, hair loss, and deathly sickness in the name of wellness.  

How ironic.

Anyway, my four daughters overrode my vote to handle the whole thing myself, and chose to each take a day and drive me to my treatment.  It was four days of chemo, then one week of hoping you'd just go ahead an die, and a week of more of less normalcy.  Normalcy with cancer, that is. Then back to them trying to kill you.  

This went on for 5 months.  During which I many times wondered if I'd chosen correctly to have chemo.  It's that bad.  But my daughters won out, over my veto, and thank God they did.  For however determined I was to handle it all my self, I doubt I could have.  So they drove me there, stayed with me while they tried to kill me, then brought me home.  And tucked me in, if necessary.  And sometimes it was... 

We had a saying back home about things like this.  It went sorta' like "Shot at and missed, sh*t at and hit."

Thanks to Tiana, Dana, Lauren and Jennifer for being the best daughters a father could ever have.  I truly wouldn't have made it through without you.

Back to my last chemo treatment.  It was Tiana's turn.  She drove me to the infusion center, dropped me off and parked her car.  I played with my phone while she did.  Then I put it in my travel bag when she returned.  She pushed me in to the center and to my chair.  A big, gray thing that reclined should I wish it to.  And I almost always did.  I got into the chair, put my travel bag on the tray table, got comfy, and told Tiana I'd call her in 4 hours or so when my treatment ended.  She walked out of the center just as I reached for my phone.

It wasn't there!

Tiana was gone.  And I had no phone!  I hurriedly took all the travel stuff out of the bag.  The earphones, the  bottle of water, the Compazine, the tissues, a book and magazine.  Nothing.  I looked between the cushions of the recliner.  Nothing!  I asked the nurses to look outside around the entrance, and in the waiting room.  They did.  Nothing.  I looked in the bag again.  Same story.  I was sick.  I was already sick, it being the fourth day in a 4-day chemo treatment series, but this made me even sicker.  Instead of being able to go home and go to bed, I'd have to go to the Verizon store and blow 3 hours and a $1,000 on a new one.  And without having an existing phone to transfer across all the data, I'd have to reinvent my entire life into the new one.  While being sick.  

The thought made me even sicker.

I'd spent 30 minutes looking for the phone and was resigned to my fate.  I didn't even know Tiana's phone number!  Figuring I had nothing to lose, I looked to the sky and said, "God, I know you're busy.  But if you or one of your angels has a moment, I'd sure appreciate it if you could help me find my phone."  

Just then, not one second later, JUST AS THE LAST WORD LEFT MY LIPS, one of the nurses said to me, "Well, we could always call the number."  

I said, "Probably do no good, but go ahead if you want to.  The ring tone is the theme sone from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."  And it's really loud.  Probably do no good.  But give it a try if you wish."  I thought "go ahead if you must."  I was that bummed out.   

I held out no hope, figuring that God was far too busy to help find a phone.  Especially MY phone!  It's not like I've been a choir boy, ferGod'sake!  And without Him at this point, I felt there was zero chance my phone would show up.  

She dialed the number.  Just then, that song began to blare under my butt.  Loud!  "Doodle, oodle, ooh, doo doo, doooo.  Doodle oodle ooh, doo doo DOOOOO!"  

I nearly jumped out of the chair.  The other 50 or so sickies in the center nearly jumped out of their chairs, too.  The nurse who called the number clapped with glee!  She then got on her knees and began to try and find the phone.  She dug between the cushions of my chair as much as she could.  No luck.  She found a coat hanger, took it apart and straighted it out so she could use it to dig.  She finally found it waaay down between the cushions and way back where it would never have been found.  Ever!  She was able to pull it out, thankfully.  She presented it to me with a bow and the whole center apdplauded.  I returned the bow, too, as you could imagine.

Can you say RELIEVED!

Although I've always believed in God, I'd never gotten so close to proving His presense then as I did that day in the infusion center.  I doubt He did it personally, though.  Probably St. Michael.  Or the patron saint of phones, whoever that might be.  Or maybe my own special, personal angel, which the Bible tells us we all have to look after us.  

But we never needed him or her like I did that day inthe center.  And boy, did I ever!  I took it as proof that God exists, and He exists to help us in our time of need.  Like I experienced that day.  Maybe you'll think it wasn't all that important.  Trust me, to me that day, it was.  

And for me, at least, it's absolute proof.  There is a God!  And He helped me find my phone.  And I'll pay it forward the very first chance life gives me.  I hope it's for you...

Epilogue:  I'm pleased to say I'm in remission and undergoing immunotherapy.  It's an hour-long infusion every three weeks.  I'm in debt to my personal doctor for demanding I get a CT scan because I'm a reformed smoker.  I asked my oncologist how long I'd need to keep on that schedule.  She said, "Forever."  I laughed inwardly.  I'm pretty sure her idea of forever and my idea of forever, are really diifferent  "forevers."