On Promises and Keeping Them

Ruminations from a Cancer Survivor (so far)

Two years ago, just after my wife had beaten the breast cancer that had so battered her and battered our family (I do not tell her story here, since it is not mine entirely to tell), I had a strange sensation on a Sunday evening as the family was watching television. The grand children were in the house along with their mother, my eldest daughter, and my other four children were either sitting with us in the den or in various parts of the house doing what elder kids do when nothing much is going on.

I felt the urge to go to the bathroom but something was different and reaching down, realized that I was “wet” in the seat of my pants. I got up and went to the restroom and sat and voided (without pain) a copious amount of bright red blood. I looked down and thought, “Well, this is what I’m doing now.” (My father, Catholic Deacon Alan Kennedy Borse, taught me a great number of lessons—both directly and indirectly—before he passed. Among them, that I didn’t need to be ticklish (this is true) and that fear and panic have no part of any real man’s life). These are lessons I took to heart and found them quite useful in this moment. So, I thought of my good father and said, “So, this is what I’m doing now.” I didn’t know what that meant. But, I did not say anything to my family right then. I went upstairs and took a shower. I shit more bright red blood. I waited. I shit more bright red blood. I showered again. After I stopped doing shitting bright red blood, I gathered my clothing and went to my bedroom and changed into fresh clothing. I took my soiled garments to the basement and threw them in the washing machine and started it. I went back upstairs and saw my eldest beloved out the door with her children. Only then did I tell my Bride what had happened. There was then a moment of panic. My Bride did not want me to go to the local hospital. She wanted to take me to a big hospital in the “city” which was two hours away. I declined and simply walked out the front door and drove myself to the local emergency. The ER doctor (who was wonderful) x-rayed me (I shit some more blood several times while there, until that quietly subsided). He couldn’t find anything. Said I was full of shit, but that otherwise, nothing was showing up via x-ray.

“How old are you?”

“I’m 55.”

“Have you been scoped?”

“No.”

“Well, you need to be scoped.”

So, I went home and told my Bride what they said at the hospital and promised to make an appointment with my doctor. But I didn’t have a doctor. I’ve never actually been sick over the course of my adult life—but I gave the name for my PCP the MD husband of the female doctor in town who’d been such a Godsend to my wife after she was diagnosed with cancer and needed some guidance about what everything meant. This is a decision I have had no reason to regret. My new PCP saved my life. Plain and simple. What he did for me was incredible. The kind of incredible that you cannot understand (since you’ve—I’ve—never had cancer and cannot understand until you’ve survived it). I am forever grateful.

I spent Monday not doing anything. That was my one day of being afraid. I knew whatever it was was bad. But my beloved daughter asked on Tuesday morning, “Did you make an appointment?” So, I was in the office that afternoon.

Without going through all the steps—I saw my new PCP that afternoon. He was tapped in. He got me into the hospital two days later for a scope. When I woke up the Doctor asked me “Is your wife here?”

I knew I had cancer.

My Bride arrived and the doctor said, “Well, you have rectal cancer. See?” He then showed me a picture of my anus from the wrong side. HA. Who gets to see their own butthole let alone from the inside? I had no choice but to believe him. It’s an odd experience.

We wonder that our faith is tenuous then we have to trust. Even if I got a second opinion, I would know that that doctor was showing me so I just had to go with it. That’s scary. And it provides an opportunity for an assessment of sorts. Of the self.

When my Bride was diagnosed, I cried. Outside the hospital. I called my Mom (God rest her now). She was wonderful. I broke down. It was not the news I wanted and I didn’t know if we were equipped to handle whatever was coming. But we had no choice. I felt helpless.

And it was hard. My Bride’s treatment was brutal. For her most certainly, but for the the rest of the family too—and we made all the mistakes one might imagine. Feigning bravery; pretending; “getting through the day.” One person in your family does not “get cancer”: Everyone gets cancer. I didn’t know that.

At one point, I called a meeting with my children. We were at the height of our mess. I said, “First of all, everyone needs to stop lying to each other. If I ask you are you ‘Okay,’ don’t tell me ‘I’m fine’ if it’s not true. Tell me. And we’ll deal with it. And second? You know how they say God never gives you what you cannot handle? Well, that’s bullshit. Sometimes, God gives you what you NEED. And, for some reason, God has decided that WE NEED CANCER. So. THAT is what we are going to do.”

And so we did.

But, apparently, God needed me to have cancer twice.

My wife’s ordeal perfectly prepared me for my own. We’d just “rung the bell” on hers—she was free and clear. And while we had to go through her 6 months out, 1 year out, 2 years out, and so on, we were assured that her treatment—double mastectomy, chemo, radiation, loss of hair, chemo-brain, gut-wrenching side affects, all of it—had been entirely successful. For you MD’s reading, don’t forget to tell your patients what my Bride’s oncologist told her early in the process: “Sheila—we are not talking about extending your life. We are talking about curing you.”

That was a promise—and they kept it.

So just as I was thinking we had gotten through our crisis and had begun to forget the most valuable lessons I might have learned from our experience, God made sure that those lessons would not be lost on me by reaching out on a Sunday night and grabbing me by the shoulder and saying, in effect, “Hey, wait a minute—I’m not done with you.”

There’s a great line in Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” by a corrupt politician to Kane— “You seem like a man who needs a lot of lessons. And you’re going to get them.” That’s a negative way of expressing something you can find in God’s love for his children: “God chastises those he loves.” I am a living witness that this is true. I didn’t deserve the sickness I got; neither did my life. But I didn’t deserve the cure either. And yet…

Louise Cowan (Founder with her husband, Donald Cowan, of the University of Dallas) said of Oedipus: “It’s as if the gods loved Oedipus so much that they devised a way to bring him to a place where he could be saved.” Of course, the path to that place was one of suffering.

And for those of you familiar with the horrors of that story—look what it took.

We are an obstinate bunch, methinks. And the gods (I mean the True God, the ones the pagans desire and hope for) are both brutal and patient.

So, quick as a whip, I was fitted with a “port” (for the delivery of chemo therapy) and scheduled for 45 days in a row of radiation therapy to shrink my rectal tumor (no colon cancer) and I started my treatment within two weeks. I asked my radiation oncologist— “How did I get this?” He said, “It’s the fourth most popular cancer in America! It’s our diet! Japanese people don’t get rectal cancer. They move to California and in 10 years, they get rectal cancer at the same rate as Americans.” Good to know. Two things: One, pray for cheerful nurses (God Bless Them!) and doctors. Two, keep your sense of humor. When people ask what kind of cancer I had I say, “The fourth most popular kind!” And then, as if confessing a sin: “Ass cancer. You know, because I’m an asshole.” All true.

Rectal cancer is humiliating in every way. During and after. I got through my radiation therapy and chemo without losing my hair (read below) or suffering the horrendous side effects my wife had gone through with breast cancer treatment. It made me feel guilty. I did develop a weird blister on my glans however (treated with Aquifer) and I did look down in the shower one day and saw a “Foo Man Choo” arrangement going on with my pubic hairs. I asked my oncologist about this and he smiled and said, “Well, it could be worse.” He was right. It was comical.

So I got to “ring the bell” after 45 days of radiation and 24/7 on-board chemo. I bought my techs and office staff and nurses a big cookie to thank them for their care. But when I got back to the car, I burst into tears. I was like Seinfeld, asking myself, “What is this strange protrusion of liquid involuntarily erupting from my eyes??” I realized that I’d been holding it in for a month and a half and it had to come out.

SURGERY

Next was a bowel resection to remove the tumor. I showed up and it was a “Skynet” kind of situation. They shaved me (more humiliation) and then wheeled me through a door and deposited me into some 2001: A Space Odyssey room in which the nurses/techs were wearing full body suits and masks. “Hello Mr. Borse,” one said. “Welcome to the operating room.” But instead of HAL, she said, “This is Sybil, referring to the robot in the middle of the room. My surgeon, a former pro-hockey player from Canada, would be manipulating her from some undisclosed other location. “Sybill?” I said. “Are you sure you can control all 16 of her peronalities?” One tech turned around: “You are the first person ever to be wheeled into this room who ever got the reference. Yeah. We can control her.” I wasn’t so sure, but was glad they were about to knock me out.

After I awoke, my surgeon told me I was lucky he was my surgeon. Because the tumor had shrunk but in the wrong direction. He told me, “If anyone else in this state had looked at what I saw, they’d have cancelled. But I knew I could get it!”

He’s Rogue. Like me.

And he did. He got it. But he had to give me an “illiostomy bag,” which meant that my waste was going to exit my body into a bag for the next two months. I was not happy about this but I went along because, like I said, what do I know?

It didn’t work—but I didn’t know that for a long time.

I had my surgery in September and nigh upon Thanksgiving I was subsisting on popsicles and throwing up about 8 to 12 hours after eating anything. I lost 35 pounds I didn’t even know I had to lose.

My wife made me go back to my doctor. I did. He said, “Oh man, what is happening?” I explained. He examined me (announced I had the blood of a 25 year old man) and asked me what I wanted to do. “What would you do?” “I’d check you into the hospital right now.” I said, “Let’s do that. I’ll walk over there” (his office is across from the hospital). He made me wait for my Bride.

I got checked in.

They hooked me up to some fluids and I felt immediately better. He didn’t do anything else. He told me that he’d consulted with my surgeon who had a theory about me so they wanted to wait 24 hours.

So, that’s what we did.

Now—after my surgery, I’d been advised that if you are in pain, don’t stay in bed. Walk. So, I walked. The next day—and without my knowing how he knew, my Parish Priest showed up in the afternoon to bring me Communion. I’m Catholic and I keep practicing in the hope that someday I will become a “Good Catholic.” It works for me. He prayed “Extreme Unction” over me and a great blessing for the sick and I was able to take Holy Communion (in the Catholic sense—mind you, the actual presence of the Body and Blood of Christ). I was very thankful. In fact, when he left, I cried. Again.

Then I went for a walk in the corridors and the interior sort of outdoor space for patients. And my illiostomy bag suddenly filled up. It had never done this before. I hobbled back to my room and emptied the bag and re-affixed it to my stomach—and it filled up (and was emptied) three more times. I thought, “So, this is how it was supposed to work.” I felt better than I had since my surgery.

Next day, my PCP comes in and I tell him what happened and ask, “Did you guys DO anything?” He said, “Nope!” My surgeon’s theory about me was that my abdominal muscle wall was about 4 times as thick as a normal man my age and that the muscle pinched the slit in my muscle wall closed. Once everything relaxed, everything started moving.

But it didn’t happen until I’d had Holy Communion. I relayed this information to my Mom and told her she was not allowed to believe this was a miracle. When I told my Parish Priest, he asked me a question: “But what is a miracle?”

Score one for my priest.

I’m coming to the end—so keep reading.

When I was being discharged from the hospital, my surgeon’s office contacted me and asked if I could drive directly to their office. Even if I would get there after they closed. So, of course, I did. Two hours. I arrived and was his last patient for the day. He walked in and said, “Man! I’m sorry you went through this, but I have good news! We can reverse your illiostomy early!” So, we scheduled that for just after New Years.

They gave me my pathology report and walked out. When the nurse walked back in I said, “Look, I’m a smart guy and I can read—but I don’t know how to read a pathology report. But all I’m seeing is a bunch of zeroes. Am I cured?” She said, “Oh. Yeah.” “I’m cured. Like, I can tell my Bride?” “Yes. Tell your Bride.”

So, I drove home on cloud 9. I called my Bride who was teaching and she was like “I’m teaching, I cannot Talk!” and then started to hang up and I was like “I’mcured!'“ I called my kids. I was feeling over the moon. Then, about 2/3rds the way home, my illiostomy bag filled and failed.

So, warm shit is oozing down my stomach into my pants and I have to take an exit and find my way into the parking lot of a Walmart and hope I have a way to solve this problem. I had a kit (i.e. another illiostomy bag) but no extra clothes.

So, there I am stripping myself outside my car and wiping shit off my body as an inordinate number of people decide they need to come to the auto-center at Walmart at 2:27pm in the afternoon. “What the hell?” I found a zip-lock back to stow the shitty clothes and a windbreaker to put on so I could go into Walmart to buy two extra shirts. I got back to my car and I looked at the sky.

I laughed. My Dad would have handled this particular humiliation well. “Where goeth your Pride now?” Melville wrote “Moby Dick” about it. “Who aint a slave? Tell me that.”

So—I was good.

I TELL YOU THAT STORY TO TELL YOU THIS STORY:

We make promises. Let me tell you how my experience has rectified the promises I have made and rectified me. I am first a husband, then a father, a friend, and then a teacher. These are in order of value and rank. I do not have children without my Bride. Hence, my first responsibility is to her. To be true to her is to be true to everything else. To my kids? That’s a promise I made with my body. There’s no escaping it—within or without the bonds of marriage. My bond as a friend? That’s a free relationship, so I am bound to keep it if I am a true man. To my students? Another promise I made—perhaps the most free of all, since I never needed to make it for my own self.

Make good promises and then keep them, Fellow Travelers. You were made to die. Die well. To die well is to live rightly and well. And if you are not happy in doing so, rethink what you are doing and why you are doing it. Not because you might get cancer, but because you will. Bank that. God Bless you.