I won’t be on the air this afternoon (June 4) from 3-6 pm on KDKA Radio. Cancer is the reason why.
My dear friend Larry Richert is hosting his 20th annual fundraising celebrity golf tournament to raise money for the American Cancer Society. I believe it is the tenth straight year Larry has asked me to play at Longue Vue Country Club.
I always say yes because I know what it is like to hear the words “It’s cancer.”
For me, it started with a spot on my right thigh. I never paid much attention to it. I have other freckles and moles, and this one didn’t look any different from the others – at least for the first 40+ years of my life.
But in the summer of 2016, something changed. The spot got a little larger. It was a bit darker. It stuck up more than it had in the past. One morning as I was showering to get ready to go to work, I noticed that there was blood streaming down my leg – coming from the base of that mole. I didn’t think a lot about it, just put a band-aid on it, got dressed for work and went to the TV station to do the news.
That night, I talked to my wife about it. Her father was a medical doctor – and she immediately told me I need to make an appointment to see a dermatologist. As any good husband would do, I did as instructed.
I told them on the phone what was going on with the spot on my leg, but the soonest they could get me in was about six weeks later. In retrospect, I wish I would have pushed to have the appointment sooner.
That appointment was July 1, 2016. When the doctor looked at the spot on my leg, he started asking questions. When had it changed? Were there other spots like it? He asked me to put on a surgical gown and did a full body check, even inside my mouth and all through my hair. I could tell this had become more than a routine check.
He went back to the spot on my leg. He looked at the mole with a powerfully bright light and magnifying glass. Then another pair of glasses were added so he could get a closer look. Then he told me “You aren’t leaving here today until we cut that out.”
As if that wasn’t enough, he added “Based on what we see, we are going to cut it out, do a biopsy and determine whether it is cancerous. Because it is so large, I am concerned it is likely melanoma and malignant.”
Ten minutes later, I was in a different room where they prepped me for my first surgical procedure. They cleaned the area, sterilized it, injected my leg with a couple local pain-killers. (I will never forget the nurse saying “You are going to feel a little pinch with this one” as she put the needle in my leg. I joked that her “little pinch” felt a bit more like hot lava coursing though my veins. Yet ten minutes later, I couldn’t feel anything as they got out the scalpel and cut the mole out of my leg. They kept talking about getting enough of it to be sure they got it all, to be certain nothing from it was left behind. They put a couple stitches in my leg and told me I could get dressed.
Then the waiting began. They sent the mole to the lab to determine if it was cancerous. Based on the size of it, the doctor said it could be benign (non-cancercous) in which case I wouldn’t have anything to worry about. Or it could be malignant and that would mean additional measures. Until they knew more about that mole, he couldn’t say what those measures might be.
I was home alone that week in July. Jenny and our two youngest sons were on a church mission trip in Nicaragua. Our oldest son was doing research in Cleveland between his sophomore and junior years of college at Case Western Reserve University. I was home that week figuring I would work in the morning, play some golf in the afternoons and grill something for dinner each night. Instead, it quickly became a much different week.
Worry. Doubt. Concern. Fear. Not knowing what they would say. How bad was it? Maybe it was nothing. Perhaps I was worried for no reason at all. My prayers changed that week. I talked with our pastor. Talked with our son Steve in Cleveland. Told my parents and in-laws what was going on. And waited.
The call came a couple days later. It was malignant. Melanoma. I had “cancer.”
They said based on the thickness of the mole it could be something they could handle by doing another surgery on my leg. If they caught it early enough, that might be all I would need to do. If they hadn’t caught it early enough, it could be stage 4 cancer. More tests were needed.
I became familiar with the Hillman Cancer Center and the wonderful people who work there every day with patients and families who are dealing with the “c word” every day. They were magnificent. What an amazing resource we have right here in our back yard.
They did scans. They injected dye into my leg near where the mole used to be to see if the dye ended up in the lymph nodes. That would tell them if the cancer had spread and would determine the next step.
More waiting for test results. More anxious hours. More nights wondering “what if.”
Then I got the good news. They said it had not spread to the lymph nodes. They wanted to do another surgery on my leg to be certain they had “clear margins” – that they had taken enough of the tissue around the mole to be certain there was no melanoma left in my body.
I remember telling the doctor that I didn’t care if I looked like Frankenstein, do whatever you need to do to get rid of it.
Related
The second surgery was done at UPMC Shadyside hospital by a surgical oncologist based at the Hillman Cancer Center. They made a long cut in the top of my right thigh perhaps 5 or 6 inches long. It was right above the knee. They then told me they cut a tennis ball-sized chunk of my leg out and pulled the skin back together and stitched me up.
There were a bunch of follow-up appointments, but I know I got off easy. Compared to the people I talked to at Hillman and rode up and down the elevators when I was there. They went through hell. Chemo. Radiation. Losing their hair. Losing their sense of taste. Feeling like they constantly tasted metal in their mouth. Awful side effects. Weight loss. Pain. I had none of those things. I just had an ugly scar on my leg and needed to have enough follow-up appointments with my dermatologist that we became fast friends.
I did regular skin checks. I still do. My wife Jenny and our sons were told to do the same.
I do some things differently now. Slather on the sun screen. Wear a big floppy hat when I play golf. And look at the scar on my leg every day and say my bout with cancer wasn’t nearly as bad as many others.
I won’t be at work today. I will be playing golf to help raise as much money as possible so the researchers can figure out the answer and find a cure for cancer.