Cancer survivor ‘blessed to have learned lessons’

There are certain events in our lives that, from the instant they happen, we forever remember details of the moment, exactly where we were and how we felt. I’ve recently added another such moment.

On April 8 at 8:21 a.m., the doctor told me I had cancer. After an April 1 biopsy of a lesion, he called me while I was in upstate Saratoga Springs, at a journalism conference.

I felt nauseous, worried, angry, depressed, confused, alone, anxious to take action, and impatient that the next steps would take days to arrange. I tried to summon faith. I searched my brain for a plan, though I knew that while I would be in charge, others, better at this, would make the real plan.

The sore throat I’d had for several weeks had turned out not to be strep, and it wasn’t viral, either. It was a squamous cell carcinoma of my soft palate.

That call began a new, blessedly brief, painful, depressing, frightening, and now happily resolved chapter of my life.

Shakespeare’s words, “All’s well that ends well,” ring more true for me than ever. On June 24 at 4:20 p.m. — after almost three months of biopsies, a CT scan, a PET scan, blood tests, two surgeries a month apart, two periods of healing, serious side effects from anesthesia, about 30 Percocets, painful swallowing and eating, many doctors’ appointments, troubled nights and the prayers of hundreds of loved ones — the surgeon told me the results of the final pathology report: My cancer is gone. I am cancer-free.

Now begins a new chapter: five years of at least quarterly examinations and tests to watch for reoccurrence.

I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve been through, how it has felt, and how lucky I am to have had my cancer so quickly found and eliminated.