3. On The Road Again

   Sometime after the Thanksgiving weekend I saw the doctor and then the Oncologist. I would begin my radiation treatment during the first week of December. According to the doctor the tumor had been intact, and the odds were 90-95% that I was cured. If I went through the radiation treatments the odds would be 99% that I was cured. I wanted the extra, and I was still scared as hell, so I agreed.

I drove to Miles City, Montana for my treatments. It is 89 miles one way, so I put in a few miles. I was told I needed 24 treatments, so for most of the month of December I would drive to Miles City and back. The road is not the greatest, some winding, and in places very narrow and rough.  I have never figured the actual miles that I drove that month. Thankfully we had just bought a new car, which moved right along and got 35 miles to the gallon.  I just drove, and drove and drove... I also made 6 or 7 basketball trips that month as well, which are longer trips in eastern Montana. The miles gave a lot of time for reflection as well, and at times there were numerous stops to be sick.

   Quickly I got into a routine. Up early, around 6 a.m. (after awhile I would already be up), head to Miles City. I would have my treatment, then jump back in the car and head for home. Usually I got back in time to teach my afternoon classes, and then head to basketball practice. I would spend any free time and the rest of the night dealing with the side effects of the radiation. 

   On the first day, the oncologist gave the explanation of what would be done. Since testicular cancer travels up the lymphatic system, my stomach was the likely place to next see the cancer. I laid on a table, similar to an x-ray machine, and they aligned the machine to where I would receive the radiation. The targeted area would be my abdomen and stomach, slanted slightly to the left side. Once they set up the grids, they placed small tattoos on the corners of the grid. I bring this up to my kids - yes, I do have tattoos. Every time afterwards, I jumped up on the table, they lined up the dots, and I got zapped!

    The oncologists was a retired navy doctor. He told me he had seen this type of cancer many times and acted like it was not a big deal. For the most part, he really helped me not worry quite so much. He was also very supportive when my insurance company made some comments about not paying for some things. I was new to the insurance policy, and they talked about my cancer being a "preexisting condition", that it had been there before I had been hired. The doctor informed me that even if it had been there, it was not diagnosed, therefore not preexisting. I was told not to worry, he had won lawsuits of this nature before. It never came to that, and the insurance company paid.

  The last hurdle was to try and protect the other testicle. I had two children by this time. Rick was 4 years old and Jessica was a year old. Still, maybe I wanted more children. The radiation would have the chance to render me sterile. As embarrassing as it was, the doctor and the nurse spent a lot of time making a lead shield to place around the testicle to keep the radiation off. 

   Several years later my wife and I returned to my doctor and questioned whether having more children was wise. We were concerned that the radiation could have some negative effects that would cause birth defects. We were told we had nothing to worry about, as we either could or could not have more children, and there wasn't any in-between. He chuckled and told us we probably didn't have to worry about it since I was probably sterile from the radiation. He was wrong. Not long later Carol was pregnant, and then again. We had two more miracle babies.

   The treatment themselves were a piece of cake. I laid on the table for maybe five minutes, and only 30 seconds was the actual administration of the radiation.  The worse thing to come of it was I can no longer stand to hear the theme song from Jeopardy. I had to lay still for those 30 seconds, so I would mentally hum the song to know how long I had left. I get queasy even today when I hear the song. The actual treatments didn't bother me. Once a week I had blood drawn for a few months to check blood counts and make sure I was okay.The side effects would be a whole different matter.

   I made 20 trips to have radiation treatments, and four other trips for doctor appointments. I am not sure, but I think winter held off, and the roads stayed clear. The fact that I was still teaching and coaching wore on me. The side effects didn't kick in for the first couple of weeks, so I made it through the first few basketball games tired, but fairly competent. When Christmas vacation came, I was so glad. My biggest present was I could stop going to treatment. The road trips were over, well, sort of. I still had January and February of boys basketball season.

   Every Friday and Saturday night, for 18 regular season games, Montana high school athletes play basketball. I was plenty busy. By mid December the side effects from the radiation began to kick in. Basically, there were two major ones; diarrhea, and vomiting. I was taking the radiation right over my stomach, and it didn't do much for me. I began a new routine. School in the morning, basketball in the afternoon, puke and poop all day and night. I slept in small bits, never more than a couple of hours before one of the two forced me to get up. The radiation treatments went on for a month, but the effects lingered for another four or five months.

   As the miles mounted, I received another blessing from what I was going through, hemorrhoids. Not nice to talk about, for many cancer patients, they are a fact of life. The radiation I received caused a lot of diarrhea, which aggravated the already growing problem. 

     Eating was another problem area. Previous to cancer, I had been a fan of the soda called "Squirt". I drank it a lot. I also liked Doritos. They became two of my staples for a couple months. I could eat them and not get sick. At home, we ate IGA frozen pizza almost every night. That's one of those things I don't even remember. Carol and I were reminiscing one night and she told me that story. That (the pizza) was one of the few things I could eat and keep down. From what I've learned, every person is different. What might make one person sick might be the only thing someone else could eat and not feel sick.

 December 1990 was a very long month. In my teens and early twenties I had played hard. My friends and I had always joked that we would never make it past age 30, and now I was afraid it had been a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even though the doctors were extremely confident I was cured, I still worried, a lot. I had always been a worrier, and getting cancer was the straw that broke the camel's back.