St. Judes, Don't be sad...

 Midnight. April the third 1991.  Is a day I will never forget.  My mother woke me up as we crossed the Mississippi River Bridge, right before we crossed over into Memphis Tennessee.  I remember it because the sky was pitch black as I looked out  the passenger side window of my dad's Chevy Blazer and saw only the blinding lights that adorned the Steel curves above the bridge.  Me, my mother and my dad were on our way to Saint Judes Children Research Hospital.  It was two days prior I was in surgery at Summit Regional Hospitals in Van Buren , Arkansas having a biopsy of my right knee.  The result of that surgery would change my life forever.  My parents were informed it was a malignant cancer.  April Fool's!  Or so it felt like.  The events after that were surreal and fast coming.  From the moment we were informed, my father loaded up the family truck and we high tailed it to Memphis.  My dad had asked my doctor if it was his child where would he send him to and he replied St. Judes. So, we left out at five pm that afternoon on a cross state trek of Arkansas to reach the place I was to be treated.

Fifthteen minuets later we pulled up to the security post to be let in and was directed to pull up onto the front area before the door as there was a group of people and security there awaiting to help me out of the vehicle.  It took six people to get me out and into a wheel chair.  I had no strength and was in so much pain,  it took like fifthteen minuets to negotiate my safety and I was placed in the chair.  The next then I even remember was being wheeled into an exam room and I was facing a picture that some one painted od the muppet Miss Piggy .  All I could do is stare at it.  Being it was so late they admitted me to the upper patient floors for the nifgt .  In a few hours it would be daylight.  I was to begin the rigorous ordeal of finding out exactly what my cancer was.  So it begins.

I can recall bits and pieces of the next morning.  I was groggy from all the pain medications, as it was there to keep me comfortably numb to all the pain that was wracking my body from the various tumors that were yet to be found through out my skeleton.  There were nurses and doctors in and out of my lil room.  As I recall my dad had went down to get me a movie to watch while I was to wait for some procedure they wanted to do on me but I had to have sedation.  They wanted to put an IV into me, but at the time I was soooo deathly scared of needles I fought them on it, so they gave me some pills to relax me.  I remember watching the movie..it was Dick Tracy with Warren Beaty and Madonna as the stars.  I ended up drifting of to sleep.

I screamed in pain!  I was being rolled over onto my left side on the bed.  My body cried out from pain as it shot thru my body.  I started to fight with all my might.  It took like four medical staff to hold me down.  They weren't use to having someone who was as big as I was, even in my weaken state  a thirteen year old who was 160 pounds and had been a lineman on the junior high football team, still had a bit of strength to him.  My Aunt Debbie who arrived to support my mom and dad thru this, was looking at me from the other side of a window into my room, from the adjoined parents room, watched as I struggled against the doctors.  A nurse told me to grab her hand as my procedure would be over in a moment.  I cried out,  "What are you doing to me?"  then grabbed her hand.  The nurse about fell as I almost broke her hand grabbing it.  The doctor said take a breath it will be over in a moment.  All I felt was a sudden crack as they hammered something into my hip.  They were taking an aspiration of bone marrow from my hip.  At that moment I screamed out an obscenity.  My aunt, her eyes went wide knowing what was to come next as my lips formed an F sound.  Yes I said the big one the mother of all bad words, the F dash dash dash word.  Well actually I didn't.  I got the F but the rest was what you did hear in the Christmas Story..so Fudge was screamed out and filled the room.  I wasn't about to let my dignity to be tarnished that easily.  I did applogize after it all was over to the nurse and the medical staff for what I said and they laughed informing me that there were two years old who swore worse then I did, soo it wasn't the worst they had heard.  

After that day I was on a crash course of testing, therapy to learn how to walk again and experimental protocols of therapy to keep my pain at bay while they figured out how best to deal with my cancer.  On April 19, or there about they came up with a solid diagnosis after test kept eluding the cancer to be other types.  I had Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma of the bone.  I was a rare on rare diagnosis as it was a cancer that normally attacked soft tissue organs, but instead it decided to set up shop in my bone marrow, so thus creating several solid tumor sites in my growth centers of my bones.  The other part of the rare is its rare is it never attacks some one user the age of fifty.  So here I was just entering my preteen years and I had an adult cancer.  How sad can you get?

Even though this all seems like a horrid beginning to ones life, I continued to stay positive.  I took solace in simple pleasures while I was at St. Judes.  Some of the comforts I got were food based, and I remember them vividly to this day.  I had an affinity for the Bacon Cheeseburgers from the cafeteria grill in the hospital.   I would  eat three at a time and order one in the middle of the night as well.  I know I had a constant craving for hamburger pickle chips, so there was always a bowl of them close by for me to snack on.  While in Memphis I got my first taste of Asian cuisine.  So my dad had to go out to find me Chinese on the regular.  Also I had an outright craving for milk, I'd prolly drink a gallon a day , at first because it was the easiest to get my plethora of pills down my gullet I had to take on the daily.  I also remember my moms work sending me a care package and that when I got a brand new gameboy...the old black and white one, at the time was a 200 dollar hand held, and I had one..I was forever thankful for that. 

Watching Commercials of St. Judes on the TV, one may think the hospital is a dismal place.  In reality it is not.  It is full of life, love and laughter.  Yes survival is what they strive to achieve for every child, but to me the overall mission is the quality to a child's remaining years.  

"Saint Judes, Don't be sad.  Take a sad song and make it better. Remember to let love into your heart.  Then you know things will get better."