It happened 8 years ago this week. Hovering near the brink
of death with Stage IV cancer, I was unable to eat, talk, or sleep through the
night. Talk of hospice care had begun, and the consensus among doctors was that
I would not make it another two weeks.
Almost everything had been tried to arrest this death
sentence. Just weeks before, we had been told by the wizards from the
experimental treatment community that my only hope was to be a test subject for
an experimental drug; the disease was too far advanced for any other existing
treatment. The other option was a radical treatment known as a stem cell
transplant. We chose the latter option on the basis of my conviction that if I
was going down, I was going to go down swinging. But in the weekend leading
into Halloween that fall of 2005, even that slim hope was evaporating. My tumor
markers were extraordinarily high, and I was caught in the ultimate catch-22: tumor
markers do not go down without treatment—they go up; but no doctor wanted to
continue treatment of any kind because those markers were too advanced.
That weekend, while I lay clinging to life in a sterile
hospital environment on the 8th floor of Methodist Hospital in San
Antonio, my home church—Calvary Temple of San Antonio—began beseeching the Almighty
in prayer. The following Monday, the nurses took a blood sample and came back
with the shocking news: my tumor markers had DECREASED. The drop was slight,
but unheard-of. My doctor, the perpetually awesome Paul Shaughnessy, made the
call to move ahead with the stem cell transplant. Everyone agreed that a bona
fide miracle had taken place. I was wheeled into apheresis, but I was too
malnourished for anyone to find veins—so they installed a catheter in my neck
and separated adult stem cells from my blood to freeze for later use. I was
sent home to spend Halloween with my family, and hospitalized for treatment a
few days later.
Normal chemotherapy is given in 100% doses. A stem-cell
transplant consists of approximately 500% doses of Cisplatin, a platinum-based
drug. The idea was to shut down all cell growth entirely in my body—a sort of “re-boot”
of my immune system. It was the equivalent of bringing a person to the brink of
death and then bringing him back. Three days of such treatment will most
assuredly kill a person—without the novel rescue of the adult stem cells, which
they infused back into my system afterward. I’ll never forget the terrible
smell of the chemical preservative used to keep them frozen; nor can I forget
the sight of my 12-month-old son toddling around the infusion room with Carrath
and my mom.
It was 07 Nov 05.
For the next 14 days, I was neutropenic—absolutely vulnerable
to anything that attacks the immune system. Those who die from this procedure
usually do so from something as simple as a cold. Dr. Shaughnessy’s
instructions were clear: if he runs a fever of any sort, you are to bring
him back to us pronto. I had been sent home from the hospital the Monday before
Thanksgiving, and had eaten my first actual meal in months on Thanksgiving Day.
It was a joyous occasion, and still the biggest holiday of the year for my
family. But the next day, I ran a slight fever. I wasn’t about to get dragged
back to the hospital, so I tried to hide my condition from Carrath. That worked
about as well as Obamacare, and she rushed me to the hospital. They admitted me
for observation and kept fluids in me for a week. When I realized that I was
going to miss Zechariah’s first birthday, I was as angry as I could be. I remember
threatening Dr. Shaughnessy that if he didn’t let me come home I would come up
out of this bed and make him regret it. I think he and Carrath had a good laugh
at that one.
Dr. Shaughnessy and the nurses and staff on the 10th
floor of Methodist Hospital were definitely called by God to do the work that
they do. Every year around this time, I am thankful beyond mere human
expression for the miracle of life that I was given in 2005. Despite my
inherent worthlessness, God saved my life—and these fine people were
instrumental in that. I am still driven by the motivation that this second
chance not be wasted.
Tomorrow, I’ll go see Dr. Shaughnessy and his awesome staff
again, for it’s time for my checkup. I’d love for the world to know what a
great man he is, and what a crack team of professionals work year-around to
preserve life at the Texas Transplant Institute. We’ll all get a good laugh at
how I weigh around 100 pounds more than the day they released me, and I’ll
attend a reunion of stem-cell transplant survivors the next day. The best part
is that I’ll walk out of my own volition and, God willing, be with Zechariah on
his 9th birthday.
