Our initial hospital stay at St. Joseph's in Ann Arbor.
Listen to Episode 1 - Room 558 of the podcast for our real time feelings. Summary: Best friends Bradford Frost & Jeremy Potter began podcasting "Defending Your LIfe" (yes with that exact name) in July 2016. In launching this first episode, we skip ahead to the day after Brad's cancer diagnosis on October 12, 2016. Jeremy joins Brad and Dana, his wife, who is also a 4 year cancer survivor. Together they discuss the diagnosis and life ahead. Location: Room 558, St. Joseph's Hospital, Ann Arbor, MI
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This post is copied from Dana's personal blog, The Thunder Stealer, shortly after Brad's diagnosis.
I can’t believe we are fucking back here again. This is not supposed to be our story. This shouldn’t be anyone’s story. This is not our story. I’m at a loss for words, but I am not at a loss for feelings. Outrage. Sadness. Shock. Fear. I am afraid. This time I am not the patient. I am not the Thunder Stealer. This time, it is my love, my rock, my everything who was given the diagnosis. Although it is my life we are fighting for too. It is for my future. For our future. Right now we are fighting to keep the precious future we have spent over a decade building intact. And I am fucking angry at how unfair life seems in this moment. Honestly, part of me expected cancer to remerge at some point in our lives. I prepared for it. I braced myself for it. I braced Brad for it. But it was for me. Never for him. I was never prepared for that. I feel blindsided. Being on the other end of this diagnosis. Being the spouse watching her love go through the pain and fear and endless set of decisions required. The never-ending questioning. The poking and prodding. The looks. Oh, the looks. I don’t know how to be the caregiver. The supporter. The spouse. It is something that came so naturally to Brad when Little Hodgy suddenly appeared in our lives. He knew how to handle me. How to handle others. He knows how to balance being strong and being vulnerable. Knows when to laugh and when to cry. When to quietly reflect and when to bring others in. He just knows. Knows what to do. How to handle life. Even when you've been given a shitty hand. It’s because of these innate qualities that I know Brad will be able to cope and handle everything this diagnosis throws at him. At us. I just hope that I can do the same. This is not our story. I find myself fluctuating between channeling my inner Thunder Stealer - full of courage and fight - and on the verge of a complete and total meltdown. Between feeling terrified and also feeling comfort in the vast amount of knowledge we have. Because we’ve been here before (sort of). We researched. We learned. We changed our lives. We aren’t starting from scratch. But this is different. I knew how to handle my own illness. I took control and owned it as best I could. I used this blog as my virtual punching bag, uppercutting f-bombs all over the screen to help me deal. But this is Brad. My Brad. I don’t know how to own this. I can’t even say it out loud. I can barely type it. Stage 4. Metastatic. Rare. This is not our story. And because I can’t say it, I’ll let Brad say it in his own words on his own blog, The Road Taken. And if you don't know Brad, reading his words will give you a glimpse of the man he is. Calm. Thoughtful. Strong. While I write an angry "f u" to the world, Brad's words pour out with grace and beauty. He is the zen yin to my angry yang. Honestly, I was hoping this blog would fall down the google ranks and into oblivion. But here we are. Pulling The Thunder Stealer out of retirement as a way to once again process what life has thrown our way. And as I continue to use this platform as my virtual punching bag, Brad will be handling this in a different way - in a very Brad way. In addition to writing about it on his own blog, he’ll also be podcasting about it (along with myself and his best friend Jeremy) - and encouraging others to join in on the conversation. To talk about what it means to live life courageously. Something Brad did long before this diagnosis. Having deep and meaningful discussions has always been an integral part of Brad and whether we wanted it to or not, the universe just gave us a whole new set of topics. So listen along over at Defending Your Life as we laugh, cry, and get weird together on this journey. This is our story. Just not forever. This post is copied from Brad's personal blog, The Road Taken, shortly after his diagnosis.
This morning, I woke up around 5:40 am. It promised to be a beautiful day. Almost 50 degrees out, we were in for an epic sunrise just before 7am. We climbed the stairs in our loft –me and Dana with coffee and tea, and my twin brother, Dave with water. Up on the roof deck, we marveled at the breeze crested river, amber orange hues flooding the Belle Isle view, the glow of a waning moon over the westward sky. But, when I woke at 5:40 am, I was drenched in sweat; writhing in pain; short of breath. Although not the most sick I’ve ever felt, it was the most afraid I’ve ever felt in my life. I got sick in early September. One night, suddenly, I woke to severe lower back pain. At first, I blamed my hamstrings. Ten days after my symptoms started, I stubbornly went to a little day clinic and the nurse practitioner nearly exulted when she clapped her hands and shared: “You have an infection.” I took antibiotics; 10 days later, I felt better. But the pain continued, and over the next four weeks, I would struggle with more localized pain in my left flank, night sweats, general fatigue. Lucky for me, I have an ace in the hole. One of my best friends also happens to be a 99th percentile medical boards doctor–as in the top 1%. I suppose I helped him endure his first few years of med school as a drinking buddy and comrade in all of our desperate search for truth, belonging and finding friends we can jive with. Josh, except for lying about his age to me when we first met, was just one of those special friends to me, then to Dana after she moved to Michigan. Indeed, after our “big wedding” performed by my best friend, Jeremy Potter, Josh performed the official ceremony on the first day of fall for me and Dana and a handful of friends and family. (We’re still not sure we’re legally married, but Josh was a Captain, and we were married on the end of the dock over the water. Legit enough to me.) All in all, Josh has an intoxicating intelligence, which is fortunate, because he will drop it on you, over as many drinks as it takes. But, we’ll save those anecdotes for another time. Josh and I met on Friday, September 30th for a beer. He suggested I come by his urology office and meet one of his colleagues for an appointment and an ultrasound of my left flank. By Monday I had appointments set. By Thursday morning, October 6, it was clear my left kidney was dilated and required a CT scan to get a clearer picture. We scheduled it for Friday, October 14. By Wednesday, October 12, 2016, I was having fevers as high as 102, a pulse rate over 110, and severe left flank pain. My doctor (and Josh) each suggested I come into the ER to accelerate the CT scan. So, by 7pm, Dana and I enrolled in St. Joseph’s Hospital with general “lower back pain” and a request to schedule a CT. I’d never been to the hospital before – but we got a small ER room, some pain meds and waited for the CT contrast to take effect. My scan lasted until 11:14 pm; I texted Josh, who was home, over 20 minutes away, “Scan done.” The clocked ticked and as no word came back, we waited anxiously. Then, just before midnight, one of my best friends, a world class surgeon, walked unexpectedly into the emergency room in his white lab coat to share the news. Josh sat by my side, tears barely welling up in his eyes as he tried to calmly explain to me what the CT scan showed. He did it out of love, to avoid us hearing such horrifying news from another doctor. It was a beautiful gesture, and a movie moment I’d also never wish on anyone else. “Brad, you have large tumor on your kidney, about 10-14cm large. And, baseline results indicate several tumors on your lungs and one on your liver. We suspect its renal cell carcinoma. If confirmed, it’s stage IV.” We sat in silence. We asked questions. Josh patiently answered them as best he could. More tests were needed to diagnose me and ensure the disease had not metastasized further in my body. Two days later, biopsy complete, we’d confirmed the “good news” which was that there were no tumors in my brain, bones or other organs. Two follow-ups were set up with the St. Joe’s Team and, with their support, the Cleveland Clinic. By Friday evening, we were discharged. As I type this paragraph, it has been a full week since I entered the ER, but less than 24 hours since I left the last one. Yesterday, I felt good. My pain med regime was working well, I’d actually clocked some hours on the job, my twin brother was in town, and we were having a good time. Then, at 4:30 pm I had a sudden purging of virtually everything in my body, causing me to go slightly out of consciousness,and putting Dana and Dave into a serious panic – what was happening? My doctors were concerned I’d had a blood clot in my lungs. We went to the ER to clear that risk; exhausted, we got home at midnight. Last night, I sweated my way through four outfits, continued pain medication to no avail, slept erratically. When I woke at 5:40 am, I was panting, hurting, changing my clothes and, for the first time, really heartbroken. I once wrote about something like 10 cries in my life from the ages of 15-32. I’ve had 10 since last Thursday. They are good. But this morning, I felt this was all too soon. The shift from sick to seriously ill to hospitalized to given daunting odds to having my wombmate rush across the country to be by my side, and the countless gentle hours with Dana these last 7 days, and the rich conversations with friends and deep love across every corner of my life – to the utter panic of an urgent hospital visit and waking up feeling half dead. Today. I tried to quietly dress. Turn on our dim lights overhead, and grab my journal. My brother emerged and we spoke. I cried out the fear before the dawn today. After the climb, I looked out over the sunrise and arched my head 180 degrees across the sky to the moon and back. The breeze in my face, I looked over at Dave and Dana, and out across the horizon, and took in a deep breath. I took it all in and knew: this is it. This is the fight. This is me world, defending my life. |