Winning Over Cancer

"You have a mass in your chest which is pressing against your main artery and restricting your normal blood flow. That's why you have had this flushed feeling. I don't like the sound of it." He advised that I go into Emory hospital the next day for a CAT scan and diagnosis.

I asked about the possibility of cancer.

"I hope that it is not a malignant tumor, but if it is, it would be best if it were primary. If this has spread from somewhere else, we could be in real trouble."

On the long drive home, I am scared but not panicked. A strange kind of inner peace gives me the feeling that everything is going to be all right.

My wife Dorothy is shattered. She tries to be brave, but I can feel her fear. I realize that it is tougher being the loved one than the patient -- your family feels totally helpless.

I look at little Hamilton and wonder if I will be around for his second birthday. I fight back tears and am thankful that he isn't old enough to understand that something is bad wrong with his daddy.

We spend the evening on the phone.

"Maybe it is something you caught in Vietnam," my mother offers.

"It could be benign," says my sister.

"You hear all the time about X-rays being wrong," my brother says.

I choose to look at it the other way. This is definitely serious, I think, probably cancerous. Later, I roll over in bed and hug Dorothy. "We are in God's hands," I say. "And we always have been," she replies.

I check into Emory for tests. Resolving to be brave for my family, I spend the next several days cracking jokes, trying to find humor and joy in the bizarre hand that fate has dealt us. The third day at the hospital, a professional counselor who is a personal friend sticks her head in the door and says, "In the mood for some company?"