I am now a 67-year-old retired industrial accountant living in Western Colorado. I am enormously grateful and blessed to announce that I am celebrating 10 years of survivorship this, the summer and fall of 2022. May 1st of 2012, I received that infamous diagnosis that I did indeed have Tonsillar Cancer and that it was the dreaded Stage IV metastatic kind to boot! Early June of 2012 I began chemotherapy and radiation treatment. During the first visit with my radiation oncologist (in the absence of my loving wife and caregiver), I asked for the “straight-up,” “brutal-truth” prognosis – essentially asking – what were my chances of getting through this? And much to my surprise/life-altering shock, I was told I had a 5% chance of living 5 more years!
From early June through mid-July of that abominable summer, more precisely – for 7 savage weeks – Monday thru Friday I underwent radiation treatments closely followed by a cocktail of chemotherapy infusion. Like a hidden badge of courage, I wore the blistering wounds of radiation therapy on my cheeks, collar bone and upper chest in addition to the unseen mouth sores, chronic dry mouth, nearly impossible swallowing not to mention (but I am anyway), the myriad other symptoms and side effects such as short and long haul neuropathy, extended chemo-brain and abdominal scars from feeding tubes – among other things of which my fellow travelers need little reminder. To have survived the horrors of Cancer is a benchmark on its own. To be a 10-year survivor of the side-effects of treatment is legendary and a bonafede testament of the power of prayer. And one’s faith in the Almighty.
But for all that said, unsaid and having defied all the odds, throughout this sojourn I have experienced a most profound journey in self-discovery. One of fear, loneliness and despair. One of anger, frustration and uncertainty. One of humility, fortitude and courage. And most of all – one of healing and redemption. I have crossed the rubicon of disbelief and apprehension and have fully arrived in the land of hope and saving grace – a place where faith still wrestles with doubt, hope still challenges despair and love still suffers from sin.
And lastly, in the immortal words of John Bradford – the sixteenth-century Cambridge scholar/English reformer & prisoner – “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”
Respectfully,
Steve P
Grand Junction, Colorado