I remember the first time I asked God the question. My life, up to this point, hadn’t always been a dream, but it had it’s moments. Enough of them that I rarely questioned my reasons for being. I just went on with my days and figured that no matter what lay around me, if I kept my head I would get through unscathed. I just wanted to get through life and try to miss as many bumps in the road as possible.
I had been living in Cincinnati for about a year. A post divorce relationship had come and gone and I was doing my best to move on. Was walking through life, just trying to get by and not hurt anyone else. In the last couple of years, since my divorce, I had seemed to be doing a lot of that. I had spent my free time trying to prove to every women that I met just how mad I wasn’t at their species. I was trying to show that my bitterness meter was at a low number and that I held no ill will.
I was lying through my teeth. And still, I had not seriously asked myself the question. Not until this day.
I was visiting my third doctor in the last ten days. It seems that my complaints of stomach pains were actually being taken with some seriousness. I assumed that an ulcer that I had when I was younger was flaring up again. I went to my regular doctor, who sent me to a gastro guy. After a upper and lower GI series, I had been told that I needed to see another doctor.
An Oncologist.
The day before going to his office, I was sent to the University hospital for more tests and x-rays. Blood was taken, throat scrapings. I was laid on a table, given something that still ranks as one of the more disgusting things I have ever ingested and had some sort of biopsy done from my stomach, taken down through my throat with, what I assume must have been some huge hospital tool. I would describe it better, but whatever I drank knocked my ass out.
What I remember from that day mostly is not being afraid. It couldn’t be happening to me, there had to be some kind of mistake. There had to be some smudge on a test or a blood mix that caused some false positive or negative…whatever it was that made them believe I belonged here getting poked and probed. What I did find a little disturbing was that my experience with doctors up to that point had been very similar to what I remember about being in the service. Everything was hurry up and wait. But, not this. They were simply in hurry up mode. And, after the feeling of being special wore off, I started getting just a little bit annoyed. I wanted to go home, turn on the television, make myself a sandwich and just forget about this.
But, I couldn’t. If it just would have been about the pain, I would have just kept going on with my days and lived (or died) with it. But, the first time you turn to the bowl and see blood red all over the porcelain, you know that this isn’t something you can walk away from. You have to face the facts, something isn’t right and you have to go to the people that make these things right. The people in the lab coats and with anal thermometers only (what the hell is with that?). And, never fails…the coldest hands outside a morgue.
And still, I hadn’t asked the question.
I was sitting in his office the very next day at 10 am. I was going to be late for work and I wasn’t happy about it. I had called work and told them that I had this appointment and that I would be there as soon as it was over. I assumed I would be told I would need to drink some chalky tasting bottle of stomach smoothie and that all of this had been some crazy mistake. I just knew that I didn’t have what I needed to have to have to see this doctor. Not this guy. That is just how I thought about it, because I couldn’t say the word. Not out loud and not even in my head.
I remember sitting in his office, more books lining the walls than I had ever seen outside a library. I had the thought that everyone has when faced with this many books in someone else’s possession.
“Have they really read all these things?”
I remember sitting in this room looking at the walls. Anything that could keep me thinking about anything other than what I was there for. Diplomas and pictures lined the wall. Nothing unusual there. What was interesting was that, in a fairly modern building, this office looked like it was ripped from some 19 century home. High ceilings, chair rails, heavy crown molding, and beige walls. Very little character to them, which gave them all the character they needed. Outside the door to his office, it looked like any office building. But, not this room. Like he ripped this right out of some south Philly row home.
After about twenty minutes, he entered. He nodded his head at me. No hello. No nice to meet you . Just a nod. Not the start I was looking for. I had never met the man before this, but I assumed that he would have been a little warmer if he was walking in with good news. I was starting to get scared.
He stared at his charts for what seemed like forever. Finally looking up to tell me that after all the testing and the biopsy, they determined that there “may” be a growth on the lining of my stomach. Actually, there was a growth. They knew that my ulcer had done some damage. But, it was the center of the damage that was the concern. They believed that it wasn’t just an ulcer, but that some malignancy had formed on the weakened area of my stomach lining and the top of my intestine. They believed that it had to come out.
He told me that my exposure to therapy prior to surgery would be minimal. Mostly because, with the growth being surrounded by damaged tissue, the chance of shrinking it prior to surgery was slim. What the aim with therapy would be was to damage the active cells causing the malignancy to shrink as much as possible. My biggest concern, the thing that needed to happen more than anything else was for me to get healthy again prior to surgery.
See, the pain in my stomach and the blood in the bowl had freaked me out a bit. And for about two months, I didn’t eat very much. I dropped a lot of weight very quickly. Close to forty-five pounds in less than three months. Part my diet, part due to what was going on inside me. I lived on water and pudding for the most part. Almost anything else caused serious discomfort. And blood.
Hearing these words, I still couldn’t say the word in my head. It still had not passed my lips. I tried to ask him if I had…you know. But, I couldn’t. I just thought that if I could keep from saying it, it wouldn’t be real and all this would go away.
I was wrong.
I sat in that chair as he talked, staring into space. I heard very little of what he had to say. I saw the pictures of x-rays, I looked as he showed me the shadow on the lower part of my stomach. But, I didn’t see it. I was lost in my thoughts. I was drifting away in my own thoughts. I wanted to be anywhere else. I wanted to be in a woman’s arms. I wanted to be drifting around a softball infield. I wanted to be front row at a concert. I wanted to be anywhere but where I was.
And, still I hadn’t asked the question.
I remember focusing on a picture on his desk. Kids. A wife. Things I did not have. He was telling me that things in my life could change. That due to my age, the therapy could cause some destruction of some basic biological functions of the body. He said that I may have a reduction in Testosterone. He said that for a while, sex drive will probably disappear. The hormone reduction could be counteracted with chemicals…synthetics that raise that level back to normal areas. With that, sex drive should return. There is something about the word sex that gets your attention, no matter the context or location of the discussion. Here I was sitting in a oncologist’s office and all I could think about is that he was telling me I may not get it up again. Oh, the male ego and the stupid places it takes us.
And even with all that, still the question wouldn’t come.
I went through with his therapy. I laid on those damn tables and I allowed them to shoot that poison in me. I did this and still tried to maintain the diet that he prescribed to me. I tried hard to lay off the pain meds he was giving me. I just didn’t want to be numb. I wanted to feel this. I wanted to know what was happening to me. So, I saved them for night time, when I needed to sleep. Not every night, just nights that were worse than others. I missed very little work. I looked at it as my saving grace. The place I could go to forget for a little while. My crew did their best to cover for me on those days I would leave the floor unexpectedly to run to the men’s room to deposit the high protein lunch into the toilet. There were days that I would hide in the training room until cramps and waves of nausea passed. But, I believe that I only really missed one full day until I checked into the hospital.
I was in a city that I had friends and no family. My family and I were at odds. I had walked from them after my divorce. I felt I needed to get away from their soap opera. I love them all, but I had reached a place where I refused to be seen as responsible for everything bad that happened in their lives. I don’t think they hated me so much as saw me as failing them by leaving with little notice. The reasons for all this is a different story altogether. One for another day. The point is, I was virtually alone. And I liked it that way. Because, the last thing that anyone wants in that situation is pity. All you want is for someone to help you up when you fall, but let you go when you get your legs. To give you a hug when you feel overwhelmed, but know when to give you your space. My friends at the time were very good at these things. They were amazing and I owe them my life for what they did for me. I haven’t seen most of them in many years. But, they live in my heart…I will never forget them. And their love and generosity is something that I still carry with me to this day.
I was in their hospital for four days. You haven’t lived until you hear someone refer to the “damaged material” that was removed from your body. I remembered from my youth, some Sunday School teacher telling me that God makes no mistakes. That always confused me. Armadillos? Still haven’t figured them out. But, anyway, I digress. If He makes no mistakes, how can the human body have “damaged material”? They told me they believed it was a success. That all the growth and the damage done from my ulcer was removed and my stomach was sealed. I was told that, they were able to put everything back together well and that I would only have the bag for a short time.
Bag? What bag?
Yep, I had to shit in a bag. And change the bag. And put on new bags. And deposit the bags. Can anyone say, “Chick Magnet”?
I had the bag for about 4 weeks. Initially I tried to hide it. But, it becomes impossible. You have very little control over what happens or when. It just happens. And you become as nasty as a dirty diapered baby real quick. And if it happens at work, you really get noticed.
That’s right, work. I missed a total of 7 days of work, including the surgery and hospital stay. I was told to take a month off. That wasn’t happening. I told my work that I could come back on limited duty and work. I told them that walking was good for me (not a lie) and that an eight hour shift was just fine as long as I didn’t lift anything heavy (sort of a lie). I just didn’t want to sit in the house and feel sorry for myself. Because, ….
Still, the question had not entered my mind.
Two weeks after the bag came off and I was allowed to return the amazing schedule of my morning constitutions (who just said TMI?), I was told that I was needed at my oncologist’s office. I figured this was his official release of me. He was going to tell me that all was good and that he didn’t need to ever see me again. We were a week from Halloween. That meant 5 weeks from Thanksgiving. And I had plans of eating like a healthy man.
I was wrong. What he told me was that the blood draws that I had taken when the bag came off showed some suggestion of active cells (still can’t say the word at this point). I couldn’t believe it. I just didn’t understand. I had done everything they told me. I ate what they told me to and gained weight. It was like getting a condemned man healthy to kill him. They got me healthy so they could cut into me and fill me full of their poison. And now they wanted to do it again. And that is when the question came from my lips. I walked outside that medical building, into the parking lot, to my car…stopped…looked to the sky and….
“Why me?”
The most selfish, narcissistic and stupid question a person can ask.
I went home that night and did what I did best. I got on the web. I searched for everything I could find to tell me what was going on inside me. I was trying to figure out how this had happened. How this could possibly be happening to me.
“Why me?”
What I found was my shame. I read stories about people losing their entire stomach. I read stories of people having to live with that bag for the rest of their lives. I read stories of children who had been injected with so much of that poison that they were now sterile. So, if they did survive what this evil disease had in store for them, they would never know the joy of a child. I read stories of people losing every hair on their body to have very little of it come back. I saw pictures of the bloated bodies of people that had spent their lives lying in a hospital bed surviving on liquid refreshments from a bag and morphine.
And I felt ashamed. I felt so friggin’ ashamed.
I went in and did their therapy. I spent another 6 weeks, three times a week getting that shit put through my system. My hair thinned but, didn’t fall all the way out. I didn’t get bloated. And I wasn’t in a relationship, so sex drive wasn’t an issue to be noticed. My friends did their very best to take care of me when I would let them. But, that was rare. I just wanted to get through it on my own, like a blip in time and then go back to my life like nothing ever happened. I knew that it would be hard to do, but it was my goal. About the fifth week, I started working out at the rehab center. I felt I was losing strength and didn’t want to lose anything at work. I wanted all of me back (except the damaged material).
It took about six months for me to get back to what I thought I was before all this mess. I moved right after that and relocated to Flint, Mi. I was chasing love again. But, what I found was another group of pretty amazing people. I have much love for my Flint family of friends. And I miss them daily.
I have been through a lot since this period in my life. And I spent a lot of time asking that question over and over again.
“Why me?”
It’s a pure “To God” question. As if God is going to take time out of his busy schedule to let you know exactly why you got a ticket for slow rolling a stop sign when everyone else was doing it, too. I mean, as serious as all this stuff has been, if God deemed it important enough to interrupt his work on feeding the hungry, saving the wicked, and loving the world…I would have been kind of pissed. Okay, may be not at the moment, but later on…for sure.
So, the point of this story? Well, this situation…the end of my second marriage…losing contact with my step-children…moving to a place that I hardly knew anyone….all this had me very aware of all my limitations….real and imaginary. And I lived in a lake of them…swam with my doubts…and soaked in my insecurities.
At some point, honestly I think it was the promotion. It was the thought that after such a short time, they thought I had what it took to fix a huge problem in a very important area of the store. It meant a lot to me. And it started the climbing out of the cave that I had been living in for a very long time. A cave that protected me from pain, frustration, disappointment, and…..
Cancer. (there I said it)
I had believed that I could hide from life and never have to deal with any physical or emotional pain ever again. But, that is not an answer. That is a death sentence. Not a physical death sentence. But, one of a mental and emotional sentence.
So, I dug myself out. At first, I told myself that I had to so that I could run this department. There is also the fact that my attention had been grabbed months before. That attention was becoming a distraction for me to try and hide in the cave. It was the last part of my personality that I allowed out of the cave…the personal life side. The emotional side. I kept thinking that I had no right to think that anything like that was possible for me anymore. I am too old to think that way. I am damaged. Emotional scars are the most visible. More visible than the physical ones that were left by this whole episode in my life (okay, I would have to pretty much strip to show them, but you get my point).
What I finally discovered was that I had to change my attitude. I had to change my thought process. I had to change the question.
“Why me”, no more!
It was time for a change. I remember sitting in my room when it crossed my mind the first time. Sitting in the dark thinking about where my heart was taking me. Thinking about where my job could be taking me. Thinking about where my life could be taking me. And I thought; …
“Why not me?”
I came to a decision that I had to start asking that question now, before it was too late. Living your life in a cave has it’s downfalls. You don’t seen the sun coming up or going down. You lose track of time. You don’t realize that your life is slipping away. And before you know it, your life is gone. Sitting in that cave kills you faster than any cancer cell.
So, “Why not me?” has sort of become my slogan in recent months.
Why not me…
To find happiness?
To become an ASM?
To be the man that I always wanted to be?
To be a friend that I would want?
To make a difference in the lives in the people that I care about?
To fall in love.
So, I don’t ask the “Why me?” question any more. I don’t waste my time with that thinking. Positive. That has to be the answer. I am not perfect with it. I still have some self awareness issues. I don’t take compliments well. And I don’t see some of the things people tell me that they see in me. But, I am happier about who I am now than I have been in a very long time. And for that I am grateful. Because, what it comes down to is….
“Why not me?”
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