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"Hardship conquered makes you grateful"
by NR Davis

The year was 1980. He was a freshman at a small university in his second year. He grew up in a rather "unique" family, as the third of four children, and tended to suppress emotions, and tried to be a family bridge-builder. His mom and dad had divorced a few years earlier, and it probably affected him on a deeper level than he ever admitted to himself.

During the semester, he would sometimes feel a sharp pain in his chest when he breathed in real deep. He always dismissed it as an everyday pain, or as a normal muscle cramp.

And as the semester went on, he also would notice that he was waking up in the morning in a sweat, and the sheets were frequently damp from his own perspiration. He was frequently tired, and he also noticed a pain in his lower back, which he attributed to an old skiing injury.

Eventually, he could no longer dismiss the pain in his back, so in between semesters, he went home and went into a hospital for a checkup. He told the doctors of his back pain, and the doctors initially thought it was a compressed vertebra. So they put him in lower lumbar traction, to gently pull the spine length-wise, thus relieving the pressure on the inflamed nerve.

After a week, the pain still had not subsided. At the same time, the doctors came in, and told him that there were a few "irregularities" in his urine and blood samples. Additionally, some routine chest x-rays also had come back with troubling results.

There was a large, fist-sized tumor that showed up on the x-rays. It appeared to be right over his heart and vital organs. The doctors were quite alarmed, but the kid just thought that this was all sort of normal. Basically, he didn't have any idea he was sick, and was in really bad shape.

The doctors could not determine the cause of the lower back pain, but they decided to insert a small tube in a small incision with a camera and a pincer on the end of it, so they could get a biopsy on the unknown growth in the chest.

The boy thought "At last! I will know what is wrong", because in his mind, not knowing was worse than anything.

So the biopsy was performed. Unfortunately, they didn't get a big enough piece to determine anything. The doctors decided to immediately open the chest cavity up entirely, to get a better look.

And that was the first of three operations done on the boy. The tumor was entirely self encapsulated in its own sac. They removed it, and did a complete study of it.

The boy awakened after surgery with a drainage tube sticking out his stomach. He was weak, and then he looked down at his shaved chest, and it had huge sutures sticking out from his neck down to the top of his rib cage. His chest, formerly full of hair, was now smooth and hairless. He felt totally weak and horrible and pitiful.

One of his step-sisters came in to visit, and when she looked down at him, all she could do was cry. He was dying, and there was nothing anyone could do.

It turned out he had Hodgkins Disease, a form of lymphatic cancer. It is highly treatable if caught in time. And although it was found to be above and below his diaphragm (a 3C staging, very serious), it was not hopeless. It was also determined that small cancerous fibers surrounded his lower back.

So the doctors immediately started radiation therapy on his lower back and abdomen. For the next 7 months, he would be radiated 4 times a week for 3 weeks, then off a week, then start all over. He was constantly sick, lost about 40 pounds, and looked like the walking dead.

His back immediately felt better, though. A consolation prize at best.

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Then, the chemotherapy started and lasted another 9 months. He would get powerful injections of poison that did not really discriminate between healthy and sick cells, so he was very frequently sick again. Afterwards, if he so much as got a regular IV in his arm, he threw-up as a reflex.

And when that was done, he endured another 9 months of upper chest radiation therapy, that also made him very sick.

And sandwiched in between those sessions were a spleen removal surgery, and a bone marrow test, and too many other tests and shots and sticks to go into here. By the way, never let them do a bone marrow test on you while you are awake. Never.

Today, he is alive and healthy. It is 21 years later. He has a yearly checkup, and has used that near-death experience to be grateful for every day of health that he has. He exercises regularly, eats moderately, and quit smoking cigarettes recently, too.

He hopes you can read this, and use it to be grateful for your health, and that you will take better care of yourself.

That boy was me, 21 years ago. Now you know about the hardship that I overcame to get here. Now I want to hear of your hardship, so that I will be grateful you made it this far as well.

NR Davis

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