[Editor’s Note: After an enormously long absence, we welcome back one of our favorite community activists to these pages. Mr. Supple is more special than 95 percent of community activists. No matter how emotional the environment becomes, he remains the calming voice of quite disciplined reason.]
At the start of each year we tend to look back and evaluate the prior year. As I looked back, 2010 was a different type of year for me. I attended only one City Council meeting, was not active in the City Council campaigns, and wrote no letters to the Front Page Online. This inactivity was due to a Christmas present I received in 2009. In mid-December that year I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease.
This was a real shock.
All in all I would have preferred a lump of coal in my stocking.
I knew little or nothing about Hodgkin's disease. So it ended up being an informative year for me. I learned more last year than I thought I ever had wanted to know — a lot about cancer in general, Hodgkin's disease in specific.
I learned what was involved in chemo. I spent four months going every week to the clinic. I would have my blood checked. If the white count was okay, I would continue with the chemo. I learned that there are different forms of chemo. Mine consisted of receiving intravenously four different medicines plus a medicine to help with nausea.
The total time from drawing blood until the chemo was done was about two hours. This occurred every other week. On the weeks without chemo, I went and had my blood tested. This chemo went on for four months. About a month after the end of my chemo treatments, I started my radiation treatment. This began with an evaluation to see where the radiation should be administered. I now have four blue freckles that were used to align the radiation equipment. The first two visits took half an hour.
Sounds Like an Even Tradeoff
Once it was decided where and how much radiation I needed, the appointments only took five minutes, four minutes to set up the machine, one minute for the treatment. The treatments lasted about a month. I spent the first half of the year receiving treatment and the second half of the year recovering from the treatments.
You might find it interesting to know how the disease was discovered. While I was at the gym, I became light-headed. So I sat down. One of the staff told me later that I blacked out briefly. I was sitting there drinking some juice and the paramedics appeared. I guess it is a standard policy at the gym to call the paramedics when someone blacks out.
When they took my blood pressure, it was extremely low, and they took me to the emergency room. I ended up spending two nights in the hospital.
I think they ran every test they had with a three-letter acronym (MRI, PET, EKG, EEG) on me. When they finally let me out, they said they could find nothing wrong with my heart but I should have my doctor check out the mass that they detected in my chest.
I underwent a needle biopsy, and it was determined I had Hodgkin’s disease. A number of doctors told me it was serendipitous (for UCLA graduates, that means “lucky in making unexpected and fortunate discoveries”) that I blacked out at the gym and found the mass early.
A Time for Smiling
And thus began my period of cancer education.
During my treatments last year, I made some interesting discoveries. I learned what good support I had from family and friends. I received correspondence from people, sending me their prayers and best wishes. They sent items, like ginger, to help with the nausea, and books and magazines to entertain me during the two hours of chemo. I still was working a couple of days a week. During the period where I had lost most of my hair, one of my co-workers told me we were having sandwiches in the conference room for lunch. When I went into the conference room, there were about thirty of my co-workers wearing those rubber skull caps that made them look bald.
Also during this time of treatment I met those special people who work treating people with cancer. I would think it must be a difficult job, always dealing with people with cancer. The doctors, nurses, and staff at the Angeles Clinic in Santa Monica where I received the chemo, were wonderful. As I sat in that room with the others receiving treatment, I could see how the staff treated the people. They were always upbeat and smiling.
A Timely Warning
They seemed to know how the patients were dealing with the situation and how to relate to each individual patient. With some they were more serious and with others they would joke around a little. This is also true of the doctors, nurses, and staff of the Vasek Polak Radiation Oncology Dept. at St John’s Hospital, where I received my radiation treatments. While I only spent a few minutes each visit, and not the two hours required for chemo, I found they were always upbeat and smiling.
I also learned how good I actually had it. Other people I saw during my treatments had it worse than me. Compared to other forms of cancer, Hodgkin’s is one of the good (?) cancers, good only because it is one of the more treatable cancers.
My last scans were clean.
I guess I am ready to become active again.
In the end I did not find the treatment as bad as I had expected. The chemo never really made me nauseous, but my stomach was just a little off. I was tired and lacked a lot of energy. I think I didn't have many problems because I was basically healthy when I started the treatment. I ate pretty well and I exercised.
I will end by suggesting that you do not wait until you are sick before you start getting healthy.
Mr. Supple may be contacted at tomjsup@ca.rr.com
