Re: Siegal's article

[Guest guest]

Awesome article. Talk about a fighter. Yes so simple, if he had known

that colon cancer was in his family and he had gotten his

scope at age 50 or much earlier he probably could have avoided all this

now... I can say the same. Jolene

Peggy C. Durant wrote:

> http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/cgi/content/full/10/7/558

>

>

> REFLECTIONS

>

>

> One at a Time

>

> * Siegel *

>

> /Correspondence:/ Siegel, ABC-TV, 147 Columbus Avenue, New York,

> New York 10023, USA. Telephone:

>

> As oncologists, you often talk about very large numbers: thousands^ of

> deaths, millions of cases, billions of dollars. I would like^ to remind

> you that you save lives /one at a time/.^

>

> And one of those is mine. And I thank you.^

>

> But I'd better start at the beginning so you know why^ I'm grateful to

> you.^

>

> " I don't have good news. " These aren't words you^ easily forget.

> Especially when they're said by a doctor^ who's just finished giving you

> a colonoscopy.^

>

> It was the summer of 1997, I was 54 years old, and 1 week before^ we'd

> had very good news. My wife, Ena, was pregnant. The^ baby was due in

> February. The American Cancer Society's^ Web site said that, all things

> considered, I had a 70% chance^ of being alive to witness the birth.^

>

> I had surgery 1 week after the diagnosis. The surgery was far^ more

> difficult than expected, the cancer far more serious. I^ was given a

> colostomy. There were nodes; the cancer had probably^ spread. Treatment

> would include simultaneous radiation and chemotherapy.^ The odds of my

> witnessing the birth of my first and only child^ dropped to 60%.^

>

> One day, when Ena was visiting me in the hospital, I noticed^ she was

> starting to show. I started to cry.^

>

> I remember looking out the hospital window at a tree, a tree^ that had

> somehow managed to grow large and lush even though^ its seed had somehow

> taken root on a 2-foot-wide spit of land^ between FDR Drive, one of the

> busiest highways in the U.S.,^ and the East River, one of the most

> polluted bodies of water^ in the world.^

>

> I began charting the coincidences that had brought me, in the^ words of

> a Jewish prayer, " to this season. " My grandmother had^ crossed this same

> river 6 days a week to work in a sweatshop;^ I'd been invited to the

> White House, met four Presidents,^ and had voted for only one of them.

> If whoever had given this^ to me wanted to take it back, I decided I

> could do it. I could^ give it back. Somehow knowing I was able to give

> up life gave^ me the strength to hold on.^

>

> My grandmother, my father's mother, was diagnosed with^ colon cancer at

> 80. I knew that.^

>

> She died at 90 from, I thought, something else.^

>

> I got a call from my Auntie Annie while I was recovering from^ the first

> surgery, to find out how I was doing. She told me^ three of my mother's

> first cousins had colon cancer. I^ didn't know that.^

>

> Had I known that, would I have insisted on having my first colonoscopy^

> at 50 or before? Perhaps. Had my doctors known that, would they^ have

> insisted on a colonoscopy at 50 or before? Most definitely.^

>

> The good news is I learned I am much healthier and far more^ resilient

> physically and psychologically than I ever dreamed^ I was.^

>

> The bad news is I have had far too many occasions to discover^ just how

> healthy and resilient I am.^

>

> The chemotherapy of choice for colorectal cancer was 5-fluorouracil^

> with leucovorin. I had a port dug into my chest, and a plastic^ tubing

> connected the port to a pouch the size of a cereal box.^ Inside the

> pouch, a battery-powered pump would dribble the exact^ amount of the

> chemical through the tubing and into the port^ to my jugular vein. I

> slept with it, wore it, carried it 24/7,^ like some kind of briefcase

> from hell.^

>

> Two nurses came to our apartment to hook me up to the chemotherapy.^

> They told us that if the chemical should somehow leak or spill,^ " Do not

> under any circumstances touch the chemicals. " ^

>

> They gave us a 24-hour emergency number to call. They would^ come day or

> night to clean the mess; it's that toxic.^ And I thought, " That's on the

> outside. What is it doing^ to my inside? " ^

>

> I found out almost instantly. I got sick and stayed sick.^

>

> I also began a series of radiation treatments three mornings^ each week

> at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In preparation,^ they created

> a three-dimensional, computer-generated model of^ my tushie; an " X "

> marked the spot the radiation had to hit.^ I never saw the model-I never

> wanted to-but a few^ times a year I'm solicited for personal items for

> celebrity^ auctions and I do think about calling Sloan-Kettering to see^

> if the model is still around.^

>

> The major side effect of radiation is exhaustion. The effects^ are

> cumulative. By the end of the course I was so exhausted^ I have one

> memory: lying on a couch, a glass of water on a coffee^ table about a

> foot away from my hand. I was too tired to move^ my arm to grab it.^

>

> One of the side effects of chemotherapy, I was told, is loss^ of

> appetite. What I wasn't told is that food would become^ demonized. Dry

> toast, which I tried to down, was like biting^ into a two-by-four. Rice

> pudding came to life in the spoon,^ the grains of rice turning into

> maggots.^

>

> Cancer is infantilizing. You can no longer take care of yourself,^

> adding insult to injury.^

>

> And cancer is insidious. It attacks where you are most vulnerable.^

>

> My last day of chemotherapy was the day we took Dylan home from^ the

> hospital.^

>

> My follow-up consisted of regular computed tomography (CT) scans^ to

> make sure the cancer did not spread.^

>

> It did.^

>

> Just before Dylan's second birthday, I got a phone call^ from my

> oncologist, the scan I had taken that morning was clean.^ I was standing

> on 5th Avenue when I received the call, walked^ into a shop and bought

> Dylan a cashmere sweater for his birthday.^ Not the wisest present for a

> 2-year-old boy. If I'd been^ on Park Avenue in front of the Mercedes

> dealer, I would've^ bought him a car.^

>

> The next day I got the " Oops " call.^

>

> A lesion on my left lung. I would lose the lower lobe of my^ left lung.

> My doctors were hoping it was a new cancer, unrelated^ to my colon

> cancer (I was a smoker but had quit smoking 20 years^ before). Primary

> lung cancers found this small have a 90% cure^ rate. It wasn't lung

> cancer. My colon cancer had metastasized.^

>

> A few months later, they discovered something on my right lung.^

> Scartissue, they were hoping. Perhaps it came from an undiagnosed^ case

> of pneumonia. Let's watch it, wait to see if it grows.^

>

> One of the rules of my profession as a journalist is: never^ ask a

> question unless you really want to know the answer. Which^ is why I

> never asked my doctors: " If it's scar tissue,^ why wasn't it there

> before? " Of course it wasn't^ scar tissue. More surgery. I lost the

> middle lobe of my right^ lung.^

>

> The meds prescribed to deal with the pain after lung surgery,^ the

> depression of the cancer diagnosis, and the lower gastrointestinal^

> problems of learning to live with a foot and a half less intestine^ than

> God intended created an unholy cocktail with sometimes^ severe physical

> and psychological reactions. Working with a^ psychiatrist whose

> specialty is psychopharmacology, it took^ us a year to balance the meds,

> often by trial and error. When^ one commonly prescribed antidepressant

> seemed to be causing^ anxiety and irritability rather than eliminating

> them, the psychiatrist^ confessed, " This is an art more than a science;

> the symptoms^ for too much of this drug are exactly the same as the

> symptoms^ for too little. " ^

>

> And then, after 6 years, three surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation,^ a

> temporary colostomy... it came back. Last September, a routine^ CT scan

> showed multiple lesions in what is left of both my lungs.^ " Small

> volume, bilateral stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer^ to the lung, " is

> the diagnosis. The prognosis is very good,^ the lesions are too small to

> be treated effectively; it may^ be a year, may be two, before treatment

> is called for. In the^ meantime, it is like waking up in the middle of

> the night and^ the room is dark and all you can hear is a ticking clock.^

>

> <>The terrible truth is that if I had done one simple thing, all^ of

> this--the pain, the surgery, the time, the anxiety,^ the fear--could

> have been avoided.

>

> ^

>

> I broke one of the rules of my profession and asked aquestion^ I did not

> want to know the answer to. I asked my oncologist,^ " If I'd had a

> colonoscopy at 50, would I have cancer? " ^

>

> He said, " Probably not. Most likely not. " There would have been^ a polyp

> or two, most likely precancerous. They would have been^ snipped. I would

> have been told, " Come back in a year. " There^ was, he estimated, a

> 75%-80% chance my cancer would have^ been literally nipped in the bud,

> and I would have been cancer^ free.^

>

> Dylan, who just turned seven, is a very healthy boy. He knows^ his daddy

> has had cancer. He knows his daddy spends more time^ in the bathroom

> than other daddies. In preschool, when he was^ four and kids were asking

> questions about death and dying, one^ of his teachers overheard Dylan

> say, " My daddy might die. " ^

>

> I would give anything to have spared him that.^

>

> In fine medical journals like */The Oncologist/*, you are used to^

> reading about very large numbers: thousands of deaths, millions^ of

> cases, billions of dollars. I would like to remind you that^ you affect

> lives /one at a time/. And one of those lives is that^ of my son, Dylan.^

>

> And I thank you from the bottom of my heart.^

>

> ^

>

>

>

>

> **

> Siegel, a graduate of the University of California Los

> Angeles,

> has worked as a radio newscaster, Los Angeles Times book reviewer,

> freelance writer for publications including /Rolling Stone/ and /Sports

> Illustrated/, and as a joke writer for the late Sen. Kennedy.

> has been a film and theater critic for WABC-TV's /Eyewitness News/

> since 1976 and the film critic for ABC-TV's /Good Morning America/ since

> 1981. He has won many awards, including six New York Emmy Awards and the

> Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith Public Service Award. He

> cofounded with actor Gene Wilder and is president of Gilda's Club, a

> nonprofit support facility for cancer patients named in memory of

> actress Gilda Radner, who died of ovarian cancer. He lives in New York

> City. /Lessons for Dylan: On Life, Love, the Movies, and Me/ is his

> first book (published by Public Affairs, New York; ISBN 1-58648-127-4).

>

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