How My Tough-Guy Attitude Helped Me Survive Cancer 2/4

Today Wednesday, January 10, 2024.

This is the second of four episodes re-telling a portion of my Leukemia Summer Surprise Tour from 2022. It is all documented in Alligator Wrestling in the Cancer Ward. While I have remained true to that story, this version is a set of excerpts to be a teaser for the original.

What is the point, exactly?

The point is that the message of Alligator Wrestling in the Cancer Ward is not limited to cancer.

(And, in the spirit of full disclosure, it has absolutely nothing to do with wrestling actual alligators. Permit me the metaphor, please.)

While cancer has afflicted and will afflict someone in virtually everyone’s social circle, it is hardly the only big problem out there.

Divorce, loss of a job, death of a loved one, legal entanglements, broken relationships, drug addiction, financial disasters. The fact is, we are surrounded by insurmountable problems.

People you know are struggling in silence today with circumstances that have no solutions.

Either we remain on top of those circumstances, or we allow ourselves to be crushed underneath as they roll over us.

Staying on top is a choice, and in my experience it is a two-fold choice: Long term and short term.

The short term decision I made, the first night of three months in the hospital, was to act the part of the tough guy. I resolved to be upbeat, positive, quick with humor and good-natured. I wanted to be the patient that nurses fought over and that doctors looked forward to visiting.

The long term decision, in my case, was made 50 years before, when I had been drawn to a personal commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. At the tender age of 17, I had little concept of what that meant. I suspected it would become a fundamental part of my identity, but had no idea it would be the key to facing a difficulty like cancer.

The confidence of knowing what waits beyond death — as well as it can be known by anyone — displaces the terror of the unknown with a surprisingly hopeful anticipation.

Don’t get me wrong: I did not want to endure a long, painful road to death. (Or even a short one.) Fear was crouching at the door every day. If I let it in, it would eat my lunch. It was an everyday fight.

As that great philosopher Woody Allen put it so eloquently: “I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

The Apostle Paul said it like this: “…The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us… For we are saved by hope.” (Romans 8:18, 24)

So, I urge you to share these episodes of Alligator Wrestling in the Cancer Ward with someone who needs a message of hope. Whatever their unconquerable enemy might be.

How My Tough-Guy Attitude Helped Me Survive Cancer, Episode 2 of 4

The night of the exploding spleen.

I had been in the hospital for 34 days in a row, long enough to learn to detest the cafeteria menu. In truth, the food was actually pretty good, but the chemo treatments for Acute Myeloid Leukemia robbed my appetite.

After the slap-in-the-face diagnosis from the oncologist, who had basically given me two weeks to live, I should have considered the following three weeks a bonus, but they had been tedious.

Chemotherapy is designed to kill the parasite before it kills the host, and in most cases it is near thing.

I had, however, lived through — barely — the 7 days of the chemo induction phase.

I spent the next two weeks sullenly choking down a repetitive menu of institutional proteins and carbs. My strength was low, and I needed nourishment. The chocolate peanut butter protein shake wasn’t bad, at least the first few sips, but downing a pint of it twice a day was an exercise in raw discipline.

In my mind, I stumbled down into the canyon of despair before me. A daily wrestling match with fear dominated my life.

I fought to continue to be the tough guy of my resolution. Every day I posted to Caring Bridge an honest appraisal of my condition, but always with a strong theme of optimism and humor. Mine was an uphill struggle, worse than anything I had ever imagined, yet I sensed that the internet followers — whom I came to think of as my posse — were critical to my survival.

Sincere prayers were offered for me daily. Whether the prayer made a difference is a matter of theology — although no one will ever convince me it was ineffective — but the fact is, I was surrounded by friends genuinely concerned for me.

Knowing they were rooting for me somehow lent me strength to stay in the battle. I desperately needed to keep them engaged.

If you lose the attitude war, you lose the war.

There were good people out there, but without an encouraging word from me, the best among them would begin to lose heart.

Meanwhile, my diagnosis, despite some progress, continued to be on the dark side of hopeful.

I struggled to hold the fear at bay.

The next round of chemo promised to be less stressful, and despite my weakened condition, I was to be sent home. I would return in a week to receive IV treatments in-patient for 5 days, then another 3 weeks at home, then return… This would be my life for the next 4 months, like it or not.

The hospital is a great place to get sick. Every malady known to man lurks somewhere in the building. Like a game of hide-and-seek, you just have to go and find it. Or let it find you.

An immune system compromised by the lack of functioning white blood cells makes for a wimpy defense.

The short version is that, while convalescing from the induction phase, I contracted a fungus.

One day, a few tiny red spots appeared on my back and in my scalp. The next day there were more. The third day there were dozens of them across my body.

The infectious disease specialist ran tests, extracted samples and sent them off to the Mayo Clinic. The answer came back a day later: It was a blood-borne fungus that attacked random spots anywhere on or in the patient’s body. Blood-borne meant it could travel absolutely anywhere; this one was not spread by physical contact, but instead, the infection was in the blood itself.

The vascular system was an interstate highway offering toll-free access to any spot in the body.

The fungus was treated with antibiotics, first by IV, then converted to oral meds. In a week of treatment, it was deemed to be under control… maybe… and we could resume chemotherapy.

Thus, the decision was made that I would be dismissed to home for a week, bag of pills in hand, and then return to commence the consolidation phase of chemo.

Shadows shifted deep in the canyon, where fear lay in wait.

On a quiet Sunday night, ready for a Monday morning dismissal, hell suddenly came to visit my hospital room.

***

A 24-year-old nurse named Kristen had met me briefly the first day of my hospitalization, then went on maternity leave to have her baby. A month later she returned to duty; I was still in the unit.

The first night Kristen was back was to be the last night prior to my dismissal. As it happened, another nurse in the cancer unit failed to show up for work that night. Half a dozen patients had to be quickly re-assigned to already-overworked nurses.

I was deemed to be low-maintenance. Kristen was becoming reacclimated after a month off work. It was therefore logical that I be given to Kristen. Apart from the mandatory 4-hour vitals, we were expected to have no contact.

At 9:00 PM, I perched on the edge of my bed, ready to crawl beneath the sheet, when the sky opened and death and hell descended into my room.

All the stars in heaven suddenly fell into my chest, and they were all made of broken glass.

I could not sit; I could not stand; I could not lie down. I could not breathe; I could not swallow; I could not call out.

Every movement caused sudden, intense, sharp stabbing pain. I forced myself down onto the bed, gasping with unbelievable agony, and fumbled for the nurse call button.

Kristen responded, and was suddenly confronted with a career-affecting disaster.

Two months later, when we debriefed this episode, Kristen explained her version of events:

“You were on the bed, obviously uncomfortable. When I asked you to rate your pain on a scale of one to 10, you said, ‘Ten.’ I really didn’t know what that meant. Self-reported pain is always subjective, and I didn’t know you at all. I gave you a laxative and left to take care of other patients.

“An hour later I came back for vitals and you were in a fetal position. I hoped you were asleep, but you opened your eyes when I approached the bed. You said your pain was now 6 or 7. That was better, but when I took your blood pressure, it was 80 over 40. Normal should be around 120 over 70.

“I called the charge nurse, who arrived immediately. While we were watching you, your BP suddenly dropped to 60 over 30, and I called for a Rapid.”

A Rapid Response is an internal hospital 9-1-1 call from the nurse’s cell phone. It always signifies an emergency of the first order.

In less than two minutes my tiny room was flooded with a dozen people: The doctor on the shift, two nurses from Intensive Care, every nurse from the cancer unit, technicians, an EKG cart.

The Chaplain showed up; not generally a good sign.

People were speaking on cell phones urgently. Some left the room while others crowded in.

Kristen: “Your BP went to 60 over 30. In the nurse’s squad room, we call that ‘60 over dead.’ Nobody comes back from 60 over 30. With nothing else to do, we sent you to Cardiac ICU.”

I was in excruciating pain, but the worst was yet to come. Transferring a patient from a hospital bed to the transport cart is an exercise worthy of the Marquis de Sade.

The patient is rolled onto his side, up against a bed rail. A sheet is stuffed beneath him, then he is rolled onto his back and onto the other side, up against the far bed rail. The sheet is extended, then the patient is allowed to roll onto his back.

The bed rail is dropped down. Four nurses grab the corners of the sheet and drag the body across from bed to cart.

Ba-bump! Bump, bump!

For once in my life, I screamed. I tried to make it a tough-guy scream.

Deep in a crevice of bewilderment, I was enveloped by pain and fear. The rolling of the cart wheels and the urgent voices surrounding the moving transport merged with my own moaning.

In my imagination, I could hear the cackling of demons in the distance.

I sensed that the transport moved rapidly, surrounded by orderlies and nurses. Overhead lights went by quickly.

Bumps and rattles as the cart rolled over thresholds created new opportunities for the shards of glass in my chest to wreak havoc among my organs.

Then at last, a strong male voice: “Can we get in here ahead of you? I don’t think this one can wait.”

***

A few snatches of audio and video remain to me of that night. The scenes are disjointed and out of sequence, reflecting the supreme confusion I felt.

A nurse on a telephone: “Mrs. Ghormley? We have your husband in ICU, but he says you can wait till morning to see him.”

Another nurse, from across the room, shouting: “No! Tell her to come now!”

Later, or maybe earlier: A young man in scrubs — a surgeon: “There appears to be blood in your bladder. This is probably caused by a ruptured spleen. We won’t know till we get inside to take a look.”

At another time: A nurse in my face, shouting: “Curt! Stay with me! Stay with me! Stay with me!”

And then, someone else slapping me from the other side; irritating and vexatious. The pain meter had been pegged for so long it hardly made a difference, but every jostle was an electrical shock. All I wanted was sleep, but whoever this was, made it impossible.

Which was the point: Sleep would lead to unconsciousness, which was on the road to death.

There was more in a night that seemed to last forever. I sensed that I was very close to the edge of… something.

Something very dark and very frightening was very near.

***

I awakened to another nurse in my face with an over-loud voice. “Mr. Ghormley!” she commanded. “Are you awake!”

I was aware of the room about me but kept my eyes closed. I shifted slightly, tentatively feeling for the pain.

It was gone. Relief flooded through me.

The voice shouted again: “Mr. Ghormley! Can you hear me!”

I opened my eyes, took in the worried face of a nurse and two or three others behind her. Anxiety was written across them. I cleared my throat and slowly intoned, “Use your inside voice.”

There was a stunned silence, then a sudden burst of relieved laughter.

I was back.

The fungus had attacked the spleen, rupturing it. Later, a doctor explained that when blood escapes the vascular system, it produces a sensation like sharp, abrasive, stabbing pain. Because the brain cannot localize pain in the abdomen, it feels like it comes from everywhere at once, and is intolerable.

That described my situation perfectly.

One of the surgeons told me that when they removed the spleen on the operating table, they found a ball of the fungus attached. Obscenely, the fungus globbed itself onto the organ which is supposed to purge impurities from the system.

And that should have been that. I knew I had descended into the depths of a chasm of fear; I had walked — or been dragged — though the valley of the shadow of death, and I was still here. I was in a low ravine in the bottom of the canyon, but perhaps now I could look for a way to climb out as I wound my way, perplexed, through a maze of trails.

I had no idea there was yet another, deeper and darker pit lying in wait. It was just ahead, around the next corner, hidden in an impenetrable mist.

I lay in the Intensive Care Unit, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment, with the best medical care on the planet. Completely unaware of the risk, I stumbled toward the next precipice.

This episode has been a re-telling of one scene from Alligator Wrestling in the Cancer Ward: How a Christian Tough-Guy Survived Leukemia with Gallows Humor, One-Liners and a Praying Posse. The full-length version is available in audio, eBook and paperback wherever books are sold. A paperback copy signed by the author can be ordered at www.alligatorpublishing.com. Use this landing page.

Another way to obtain a paperback for yourself, or to provide copies offered at no charge to cancer patients and their families, is by donating to the Ascension Via Christi Foundation in Wichita, Kansas. Your tax deductible gifts will support the mission of Via Christi, and also make copies of the book available to their patient community.

Donate to Via Christi at www.alligatorpublishing.com/via-christi.