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Imagine walking into a local clinic to perform one of your regular duties as the head varsity football coach only to be informed that you are the one that needs to be seen by an oncologist immediately.
Diligently carrying out my regular, weekly vigil, I gathered and transported four of my injured Green Oaks High School football players that had sustained minor injuries from the previous weekend athletic contest to the David Raines Medical Center in Shreveport, Louisiana. I inadvertently shared with our team doctor and family friend that I was still having difficulty with my previous situation and the third medication that he had prescribed to me to combat an extremely itchy, irritating rash that was located right in the middle of my chest wasn’t working either.
He then suggested that I take a blood test, of course, being the tough guy I am, I wanted no part of those needles. Finally, after vehemently refusing, I was persuaded to concede. Nurse Matthews returned with this look of great concern, summoned Dr. Larry Daniels to the door and proceeded to ask, “what’s wrong with your friend,” Dr. Daniels responded, “what do you mean, there’s nothing wrong with Coach.” She then stated, “you’d better come and have a look at this test.”
Fast forward, after being diagnosed with Acute promyelocytic leukemia and being given no chance to survive without a bone marrow transplant and a miniscule chance of surviving with one, my entire world was turned not only upside down, it took several turns in many directions!
I wrestled with methods and ways of breaking the news to my family, I knew that my mother was going to be devastated and that is putting it mildly. My baby sister (now deceased) was already hospitalized with a heart-related life-threatening illness, my niece (married) was about to deliver her first child any minute now coupled with a drug-addicted baby brother and a mother that was in failing health, as well.
I still hadn’t addressed the issue of how to break this news to my spouse. What do you say to someone who thinks that you are invincible and that you will be there to provide for and to take care of them?
I thought that football was hard, however, it was nothing compared to being told at age 38 your life was virtually over! My medical records read thusly: HE IS A WELL DEVELOPED, WELL CONDITIONED, HEAVILY MUSCLED, “WHITE” MALE.
This was the most tedious journey that I had ever embarked upon; personal fear and utter devastation take a back seat to the agony of having to divulge such traumatic information to your loved ones. The ‘machismo’ goes right out of the window and quickly exits the conscious and subconsciousness of your mind. Just the thought of the physical and emotional devastation that leukemia inflicts on the mind, body, and soul, pierces your psyche with the swiftness of a lightning bolt.
The psychological pain was exacerbated because under ‘normal’ circumstances I would have taken the prescribed medication(s) and continued on my daily journey without involving anyone else. Unfortunately, this was not the type of ailment that would go unnoticed nor was it something that I could hide and just allow it to ‘run’ its course.
I had to make the painstaking decision to share this devastating news with my employers, my students, my athletes, my family, and friends. Not only was I left with no choice of sharing this medical challenge, I had to be very careful in my presentation. The hardest thing for me to do was to share this information with my mother, she was mortified, her initial response was a deafening scream, she continued this activity by crying uncontrollably for what seemed to be hours, each time I got her quieted down, she would just squeeze my hands and continued to sob repeatedly. The pain was unbearable, I could not bear to see her in such agony, I held back my ‘man-tears’ for as long as I could, eventually, the pain that I was experiencing due to her pain got the best of me.
I do not know if it was ‘pride,’ ‘stupidity,’ or both; but I just wanted to go away, do the chemotherapy, and not cause any more pain for the remainder of my loved ones, I contemplated restricting visitation for my family, co-workers, friends and my spouse.
Thank God, better judgment prevailed, I reluctantly allowed visitation as I succumbed to the pressures of my mother to not shut them out as I faced the biggest fight of my life.
Without a doubt, this was the fiercest challenge that I had ever been involved in, I did not know if I was going to live or die, I did not want those that I loved to watch me die. I felt that to allow them to watch me die would be selfish of me, after all; I was given no chance of survival without a bone marrow transplant and a very little chance (5%) of survival with one.
I never found a donor, so…, there was no transplant, nor did chemotherapy work, however, this was no surprise. The oncologist had already informed me that there was no treatment for acute promyelocytic leukemia and that any form of treatment would be purely experimental and that if I agreed to adhere to chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
Experimentally, they were going to try what is known as an ‘autologous’ bone marrow transplant. However, they had extracted so much bone marrow prior to attempting this procedure that they could not harvest enough bone marrow to even attempt the experimental procedure.
To this very day, I relive the moment when my oncologist uttered these words, “you have a very rare form of leukemia, described as ‘acute promyelocytic leukemia’ of which there is no known treatment.”
Twenty-six years later, I can still hear my mother’s screams as she tried to cope with the thought of my impending death. I am Leukemia free…!
© 2018 Melvin Casey Lars
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Photo credit: Pixabay