No, I Wasn't Quite Prepared For This!

 This isn't an easy post, but I hope it gets easier in the coming weeks and months. I won't bury the lead so I'm just going to get it out of the way immediately. I have cancer. Multiple Myeloma to be exact, which is a common form of blood cancer. 

Many of you, friends, family, clients and followers know that I was hospitalized in mid-January with double pneumonia. I looked amazing as a patient as you can see below. To start off, I had been sick for a week and wasn't getting any better. I had assumed I had Covid as many of the symptoms mimicked our favorite virus, but after waking up on a Sunday morning, my resting heart rate was at an astonishing 140+. (Normally around 70). 

Obviously it was time for the emergency room at that point, which led to a 4-day resort stay at Rochelle Community Hospital. Seriously though, what an amazing staff and care team. Being in the hospital is never fun, but their nurses and doctors couldn't have made it more comfortable. During my stay I was given a series of blood lab tests that weren't looking normal, so upon my discharge I was told to follow up with my primary. In particular they were very concerned with my Hemoglobin count, which had dipped as low as 6.8 (normally a 14). 

My primary doctor also ordered some lab work to see if things were improving, but unfortunately it was continuing to yield odd results and I was referred to a Hematologist. 

Tuesday, Jan. 20 changed my entire life. Stephanie had continued to ask me on the days leading up if I wanted her to go and as a typical guy I brushed it off. "Nah, I'll be fine." It was an afternoon appointment at my hospital's cancer center, which someone had warned me the hematologist would be at that facility, but assured me, that's just where they work, don't worry about it. 

Obviously I go through the normal check in process, get in the room and within minutes the doctor comes. Nice guy. Really nice guy actually, introduces himself and sits down to start explaining what's going on with my hemoglobin and within minutes he blurts out the words Multiple Myeloma. 

I'm not a doctor. I don't even pretend to play one on tv. But he could see it wasn't really hitting me. His words were something to the effect of 'do you know what that is?' Of course I replied, not really. And that's when he finally hit me the 'C' word. "You have blood cancer."

I'll be honest, I thought if this were to ever happen there'd be tunnel vision. Voices fade out while you're not paying attention to anything the doctor is saying or any other tv trope you can imagine happens when someone delivers some of the worst news you can ever receive. But I didn't experience any of that. 

I just stared blankly back at the doctor in silence, probably with a slightly surprised look on my face. Really the only noise was the hum of overhead lights, the slight tapping of receptionists in the hallway on their computers and some muffled voices of nurses working. The doctor stared back and quickly realized I wasn't expecting to hear that. 

"Did anyone prepare you that this might be the conversation?" No! No one told me I may have cancer at 40 years old. 

The doctor and I had some niceties over the next 10 minutes as he explained what's going on with my blood and body. He answered whatever questions I needed at the time and asked me if I wanted to call my wife. I declined only because it was something I wanted to do privately. 

After scheduling me for some follow up labs like a biopsy and pet scan we were through. He was extremely cordial, escorted me out and gave me a cautiously optimistic prognosis. 

Multiple Myeloma is considered one of the most common forms of blood cancer and is highly treatable, but as any doctor would be, he was cautious not to let on too much either way. 

That phone call to Stephanie was rough on the way home. I think a lot of it had to do with not really having too many answers. The doctor can't tell you much until further testing has been done. I just knew I had cancer, what kind it probably was and when I needed to come back. 

Fast forward to last week as my biopsy is approaching on a Wednesday morning. On Tuesday I woke up feeling okay. Stephanie and I have been making efforts to walk most days, eat healthier, all the things you do when your body says 'hey dummy, you're not 25.'

Nothing seemed off until the afternoon when I started getting a headache. This wasn't ideal as I couldn't take any pain meds prior to the biopsy. Then came the chills again, followed by another high heart rate. Long story short, I got another all expenses paid trip to the ER as the pneumonia came back. This time I was transferred to UW in Rockford because that's where my biopsy was the next day. 

After a very long stressful night in the ER, Ambulance ride to Rockford, Admission to the hospital, I finally got like 3 hours of sleep. We eventually got my biopsy, but the doctors still needed to monitor my labs for a few days so I got to stay with UW's amazing staff. Tons of labs over the next few days and a therocentesis to remove fluid from around my lungs and I was definitely ready to come home. 

This week was supposed to be "results week" but insurance had other plans for me. We're still working that out, but as it stands right now I'm supposed to start treatment next week. I don't know what that looks like yet until I have my meeting on Monday. 

So why document this? The truth, it becomes exhausting explaining to everyone the details of this over and over again. I know everyone means well. And please don't take that as criticism or a knock against any of you. I really struggled with making this public. Part of me just wanted to go on living my life, hoping to go into remission and just never really say much about it. But that's not always fair to your friends and family or the people that want to be let in. I struggle in some ways with letting people care about me and I'm working on that. After discussing it more with Stephanie as well, we decided it wasn't totally fair to keep our clients in the dark either. There will be times when things are slower than normal. Or there may be times that my assistant Emily has to do a photo shoot. But we're not going anywhere. We just want everyone to be patient with us and ask for a little a grace as we navigate this journey over at least the next year. 

I will try to update this weekly, but more importantly I'll update it when there are major events, such as next week's first treatment. Please don't stop asking questions, regardless of my paragraph above. But also, don't treat me with kid gloves. I don't want people looking at me with sympathetic eyes or pity. We're gonna get through this.