Looking for Dr. Goodbar

I knew it was going to be true, that feeling of anguish and distrust.

I hate the medical field in the US and all that goes with it, from the insurance vultures to the crackpot useless MD's that have their "take the money and run" attitudes to pay for that freakin' convertible Bentley in the parking lot.  It's so rare to find anyone in the medical field worth their weight yet their opinion.

For that is what I have discovered more that anything else while searching for "my cancer",  that there are a gazillion opinions with no 2 doctors ready to stand together to make a consensus decision.
Really, not even 2 out of the almost 50 doctors, fellows, specialists, and not to mention every Tom, Dick, and Milldrid who's had personal experience with cancer because their dear Aunt Fay, bless her heart, got "the cancer" and it was a horrible ordeal for all of us, I know just what you're going through!!!!
Give me a fucking break.
Not 2 of them can agree on what's totally wrong with me.  Granted, the human body is complicated, but it's not that complicated. This Squamous Cell Carcinoma that is in my lymph grands is a very specific type of cell.  Found only in the skin and the throat from what I have been told and researched.  Cool, that sort of narrows things down a bit.  That means somewhere between my eyes and my stomach lies the culprit.  Hiding somewhere in the moist folds of my esophagus, tickling my tonsil, crouched low under my unsuspecting tongue lies the killer waiting to grow to unprecedented size and scale that after it takes my body, Gotham City will be it's next target.  AAARRRGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, so much for the melodrama.  I just saw the Batman movie last week and it's still having a terrible affect on my introspective outlook on life.
Anyway, the surgical speciallist then sends me to go see an Oncolgist (Cancer Guy #1).  He can't see me for 3 days.  Fine.  It only June 4th at this point.  We only discovered cancerous cells the week before.  It's not like I have only 3 days to live.  Waitings cool.  Gives me time to get on line and do a little research into squamous cell carcinoma.
Finally the day arrives and I go to see Cancer Guy #1.  I figure he's going to look into my month and tada, "there's the evil doer, "be gone" he'll shout, and wave some magical Oncologist amulet and we have a cure.  Ah, no.  This is only a consultation (meaning $500, check please)
You have to go see an ENT (that's Ear, Nose, and Throat guy- and an anacronism for Entertainment) and you need to go see your dentist to have teeth pulled out!   Say WHAT!
The dentist has to approve that your teeth are in good shape incase we have to do surgery or Radiation on the primary which we haven't found yet.  Pulling teeth is just a precaution.  Fuck Me.
 I make the dentist appointment and they were very good to get me in the next day, June 5.  Dentist rummages around in my mouth, tech cleans, given the "AOK" and don't need to pull teeth, your teeth are in great shape (just now very straight, but we can fix that after you get through your cancer stuff)
Guess that's when I'm lying in the coffin everyone that comes to the wake can say "my, he has the nicest straightest teeth for a dead guy"
Task 1  Oncologist Consultation, check!
Task 2 over, Dentist, check!
Next day, I get to go to the ENT.  They "squeezed" me into his schedule although when I got to his office, I was the only one in the waiting room. Hmm.
Didn't know what to expect but I figure if anybodies going to find cancer in my throat, a freakin Ear, Nose, and Throat guy would be the ticket.  Today, my wife decides to come with me so she can be part of the "discovery".  Excellent, I got a witness!
So Dr. ENT's nurse comes in and sets up a bunch a gear for a laryngoscopy.  Part of that is this long very skinny black thing that looks more like a sex toy than a medical devise.  She explains that the sex toy is actually the scope the doctor will be using to look down into my throat.  I ask, " how does the doctor keep me from gagging as it goes down my throat"?  Silly me, "he sticks this thing into one of my nostrils in my nose and goes down that way" nurse Ratchet explains.  "But don't worry, we'll numb your sinuses and throat before he does that".  And at that point this women picks up what looks like a tire pressure fill valve you see at the local Exxon, hands me a Kleenex, and states " just breath in normally, this won't bother you at all"  and proceeds to fill 'er up to about 65 psi up my nose with pressurized powdered Novocaine!  I thought she nearly blew my head off.
My wife, pillar of salt and usually quite stoic in demeanour, is practically on the floor laughing hysterically.  After about 30 seconds, she gathers herself together and says sweetly, "Honey, you got smoke coming out your ears!"  Thanks for your loving support, dear!
So another 15minutes passes by and Dr. ENT finally comes in.  Guess the 6 year old in the room next door with the emergency marble shoved up his nose took precedent over my cancer.  He comes in and grabs the sex tool, introduces himself, and proceeds to stick the sex toy in my nose and down into my throat.  The words, "this may be a touch uncomfortable", even after having my mind altered with Novocaine, has new meaning at this point.  After about 10 minutes of this dude rummaging around my nasal cavities, tonsils, and esophagus, he pulls out the sex toy and quieting sits down for a discussion.
This guy says he really didn't see anything in my throat but if he had, he would just refer me any way to
the Cancer Guys at Wake Forest Baptist Cancer Center cause"I really don't do surgeries or like to work with cancer patients"  WTF, the bastard new I was there to try to find my primary cancer spot and he"doesn't work" with cancer patients.  He said his goodbyes, Cha ching for a $50 copay and a bill to the insurance company for another $250.  Wow, fucked like a cheap whore and I paid to get corn holed.  Another shining example of my hatred for certain medical "professionals".  Go to med school, take your bars and residency, start up a comfy little practice fixing little Emma's lactose intolerance, all is good in Dr ENT's little world.  Fuck U.   Now second week in June and I still have no diagnosis of what is the central cause of my cancer and my little lymph nodes are slightly increasing in size.
Next post will come out sooner with the continuing saga of doctors and my discovery.  Sorry the last two posts were so far in coming, but as you have read to this point, the "discovery" phase of my particular ailment is/was a great mystery and many weeks passed before a plan came into affect.

The dreaded "C" word.

Sorry, haven't posted for a while.  The past 2 months have been a whirlwind and I'm just now getting into the routine of daily treatments.  Where did I leave off.......

Oh yes, the bumps on my neck.  So they didn't go away with antibiotics.  Bummer.
Next step was go see my doctor again to find a solution.  Went to see her and she immediately schedules me to go see a surgical specialist.  Go see this guy 2 days later and he checks out my "bumps" and gives the usual doctor answers with a "hmmmmm".  "You need a Biopsy" he exclaims so we can rule out cancer".  CANCER, what the fuck.  I thinking it's some funky ass disease I brought back from Africa or Saudi Arabia what ever other third world country I had been to in the last 6 months.  Not cancer.  Too young for that, not sick at all, feeling pretty damn good!

Whatever, next day I go to hospital and get myself a fine needle aspiration.  Definition=some guy sticks a syringe needle into one of the larger swollen lymph nodes on my neck, swizzles it around a bit, and sucks out some tissue so some lab can determine what's making or not making my lymph nodes swell.
Fortunately, the guy with the needle first sticks the area with a local anesthetic to numb the area.  I tell this to you now, dear readers, because there's more to come about fine needle aspirations.

So cool, got this lab working on my sample.  In the mean time I have the National Spelling Bee to do in Washington DC.  Labs won't be back for 10 days, right in the middle of S.p.e.l.l.i.n.g.
No biggie, just going to go to DC, do my gig, fly to Orlando for the next one and have the next 2 months off to figure out what's going on.  Perfect.

On Wednesday, the "specialist'  calls.  Test is back from the lab.  "Dude, you have metastatic squamous cell carcinoma in your lymph nodes" claims the guy.  "Dude, what the fuck is that?' I retort.
"Cancer, but that's not the worst part of the news, it's not where it started.  You can't get that kind of cancer in your lymph nodes, it has to start somewhere else and move (thus the metastaic part for the laymen out there) from somewhere else.  This is serious stuff, you need to get on a plane right now and come back home so we can figure this out"
Right, the day before the National Spelling Bee finals broadcast nationwide I'm going to go up to the producer and inform him I outta there, he'll need to find some one else to finish the show.
Needless to say,  I didn't.  I had these squamous cells floating around in my neck for a couple of weeks, whats another couple of days.  Happy show, happy client, semi-happy LD.
I did cancel my next Orlando show, thank you very much Nick Farrel for you understanding and for my wife threatening divorce (love you!)  Sometimes money isn't everything and peace of mind is everything.  It is at this point that the adventure begins; to trek and probe the inner and outer most parts of my body. Places no man, or woman, has ever ventured forth.  Going into the Dampest, darkest, nasty, smelly spots of my being in search of the illusive "host" of the metastatic squamous cells.
Oh the humanity!  I  was going to feel so defiled and abused, balled up and thrown out like a greasy microwaved burrito wrapper from 7-11.

2012, Year of the Water Dragon

2012 is characterized by the Dragon and the element of water.  It is considered to be a year of new beginnings and mixed blessings.  In Chinese and Tibetan astrology, each year alternates between yin and yang.  We are ending the year of the Iron Rabbit which was a yin year. The energy was focused on taking care of past and current situations.  The Iron Rabbit was more about working through difficulties that had already begun in 2010, the year of Iron Tiger.   However, 2012 is a yang year and will be much more active and forward moving than the yin of the Iron Rabbit.  We can expect more excitement and unpredictability in the year of the Water Dragon.


To say the least in my life.  Besides the heart attack in 2008, Kim was in flux with her job situations and finding a place to live that worked for us.  2010/2011 was the year of the moving van .  
We moved our household to 4 different cities between the months of Sept 2010 thru October 2011.  We came down off the mountain to the Charlotte area and lived in 2 different homes we lease optioned to buy but didn't.  We moved across the state of NC east of Durham to some hell hole of a little town at the height of summer for a new Kim job.  We lasted in Oxford, NC 4 months, thank God, for Kim was head hunted by the same library system 15 minutes from our old home in the mountains. Move number 4 on December 18th in the winter in the mountains.  Hopefully you get "my drift", no pun intended, on the move back but that a drift was literally part of this move back, as well as an icy covered road up a hill that the moving van guys refused to drive on to get my shit off their truck.  It was an interesting sparsely furnished Christmas in the mountains. 
I should start a completely different writing on the highs and lows of moving, but for now I am trying to focus on the cancer thing so I won't digress.


2012, Year of the Water Dragon.  Could be an omen.  I'm a Virgo.  Virgo is a water symbol.  This could be good! February, I was cleared by my Cardiologist and given 2 thumbs up for what ever I was doing and keep up the good work.  My heart was doing fine.  Whoo Hoo!  Back to wearing the "Life is Good" tee shirt.


Skip on to the beginning of May.  Now some of you were working with me in Washington DC the first week in May.  You saw first hand on the next malady to happen to me.  While in DC, I can down with a viral infection of my right parotid gland (Salivary Gland to all laymen out there).  Sucker swelled up to the size of a handball.  It was not a pretty site.  So on a day after we had finished early, I hopped a cab and went to the closest walk in clinic to the hotel.  The doctor I saw could have been Bill Cosby's brother, dry humor and a non stop talker. (I suppose he was sort of bored, I was the only patient).  He examined me, thoroughly questioned my personal history and work related travel history for the past 3 years.  I truly thought he had found the next mystery plague in my body that would be named after him, make tons of $$$'s, and get him out of his deadend job as a walkin clinic doctor.  Then reality struck, brought him back, and came up with a prescription of antibiotics. He then
told me that he had also found some other smaller lumps in the lymph glands on the left side of my neck.  If the antibiotics didn't help reduce these lumps as well, for they may be part of the viral infection of my parotid, that I should go see my primary doctor when I got home to check on them as well as the parotid.  2 weeks later, I'm home.  Parotid swelling has decreased to almost normal size.  Lymph glands, not so much.