The 300

So yesterday was...educational.

For the past two weeks I've been trying to convince myself that I don't have cancer. Part of my self-reassurance was the fact that no one actually told me that I had it. I was simply referred to see someone whose receptionist answers the phone with, "Oncology Department." Hematology and Oncology are linked practices, so it was very well possible that I was just going to see a hematologist.

So I get there and all the while I'm telling myself that her office just happens to be on the same floor and they're gonna point me down the hall to a little room with a lowly hematologist WAY on the other side of the floor from the oncology department. This did not happen.

"Oh no, you're in the right place. Have a seat."

I was the youngest person there and got the same pitying stares that I got when I was the youngest person in pre-op for my heart surgery. Only this time I was there by myself and for the first time in my life, I didn't want to be alone. Perhaps it was the combined weight of all the other things that have happened this year--the biggest of which caused me to join the free agency rather than willingly losing my starting spot--but I finally felt the hull crack. I was starting to lose it.

One of the people behind the desk asked me to check in, which means giving them my insurance card and them putting a wristband on me with all of my vital information. Then she handed me a packet that outlined "living with cancer" and told me the duties of my social worker. I broke down. I didn't cry, not that I'd be ashamed if I did. I just sat there and everything became background noise.

I could hear my heartbeat rising. I don't know how, but I could. I felt like throwing up. More than anything, I was insulted by the routine of it all. A packet. A wristband. A woman telling me things as if reading off a script. Your job is to tell people that they're gonna die. Pretend it's your first time. I went back to the waiting room chair and just felt overwhelmed by it all.

At my best, I could handle cancer. I could kick its ass up and down this hospital. In the end, it may win, but it'd be so battered and bruised that it'd think twice before going on to the next person. But I wasn't at my best. If you haven't figured out by now from the thinly veiled analogies, my wife and I separated earlier this year. I defined myself by two things: Fatherhood and Marriage. Losing one was like being physically cut in half and no one survives that.

I can't describe how heartache feels, and believe me, I've tried. All I can tell you is that I never felt this much pain because I never loved anyone or anything this much. I could tell you about how I cried almost everyday for hours on end, and I wouldn't give half a damn that it makes me look soft. Heartache can reduce a mountain of a man into rubble, so what chance did I have? At its worst, you feel like dying, which brings my story full circle.

In the midst of my misery, I get hit with this. But before I can find a way to shift my focus to this, I get hit with some concerns about my daughter's health. I absolutely positively won't go into detail about that, but you can understand how the stress could be overwhelming.

So there I was sitting in the waiting room of the cancer research center with a packet that might as well have said, "You're gonna die." And I realized that I just don't have time for it. I gotta take care of my baby, although I would willingly give my life and my health if it'll make her okay. So a part of me is thinking, "I can't be sick, because she needs me." The other part is thinking, "Kill me right now if you need anything to help her." It's conflicting. And then there's this side thought of, "Remember when you were crying on the floor a few weeks ago and thinking that you wanted to die? Wish granted."

By the time I got to the back and saw a nurse, my blood pressure had spiked. My pulse was 46, which to her was extremely low, but for my particular heart condition, that was a racing pulse. I waited another 15 minutes for the doctor and spent all of that time thinking about what I could accomplish if they gave me a year, six months or three. I thought about what I needed to do for my daughter and how, even though it didn't seem like it two weeks ago, there are bigger things in the world than heartbreak.

The doctor ran some more tests and concluded that I don't have cancer. I don't have many white blood cells which is strange and, in her own words, "I've never seen someone with so few." She said that the number keeps going down, and, based on last year's results, if I were gonna die, it would've been back then. No clue really how I can fight off even a common cold, but the fact that I'm alive right now...my immune system is functioning fine with what it has.

So if I could bring any humor to this long sad story, it would be this. My white blood cells are The 300. They're few in number, but they're Spartans. They do the job 10,000 couldn't do. And if 300 cells in my body are that strong by themselves, then what does that say about the collective power of every cell in my body? She told me, "You're fine. Go live a long happy life." I intend to do just that. Perhaps this was a wakeup call.

I got the message.

Now let's take care of this baby and move on.