About my Tumor

The scariest part about my cancer has turned out not to be treatment, but how long it took for the diagnosis. For years, I have had sporadic pain in my lower back. I quit jogging when I was 26, but I thought that the pain was a result of the many accidents I have subjected my body to. Around last summer, summer of 2006, the pain grew increasingly worse making it difficult to walk normally. Given the pain was primarily in my right leg and foot, I started seeing a foot doctor in September. After a couple of X-rays it was determined I had fallen arches and given 2 shots of cortisone in my right foot and prescribed orthopedic arches for my shoes. This helped my feet, somewhat, but the pain was still in my leg.

I next went to an orthopedic doctor who was a close friend of the family and who had done numerous surgeries on myself and other family members, Dr, Rex Harris. I began seeing Dr. Harris in late October and continued through November. He is partially retired now, only seeing patients on Fridays so getting an appointment was difficult. After two consultations, no MRI's and no X-Rays, he decided I had tendonitis. He told me to quit jogging, which I informed him I hadn't done in years. To make things worse, his office refused to prescribe me anything for my pain other than Naproxen and Ibuprofen. Neither of which was doing the job of controlling my pain. I tried to explain to the nurse numerous times, but she told me to keep taking them. I later determined I had an allergic reaction to the Naproxen; it had raised my blood pressure up to 170/90 on one occasion. By December I was walking on a cane.

In December, I had two unsuccessful visits to Dr. Harris's office. One canceled due to an emergency surgery and the second due to snow. Since I could only get appointments on Fridays, and two weeks in row these were canceled, I decided to quit seeing Dr. Harris.

In January, I went to see an internist, Dr. Malensek . Of the Doctors I had seen so far, Malensek took the most time to listen and try to diagnose my entire problem. He ordered the first rounds of X-rays and MRI's for my leg and back. He also referred me to a neurologist, Dr. James, and an Orthopedist, Dr. Kissell. In early February, I met with Dr. Kissel, and he determined that it was torn cartilage in my knee that had formed a puss pocket --pinching the main nerve in my leg. I had microscopic surgery on my right knee to remove the torn cartilage. This involved punching two holes in my knee for the surgery and several months of rehabilitation.

The week following my knee surgery, around late February, I met with Dr. James who looked at the MRI's of my lower back and decided it was a herniated disc causing all my problems. He ordered additional MRI's of my back, which I didn't find out the results for almost two weeks due to spring break. After these second rounds of MRI's, Dr. James referred me to Dr. Harsh, a neurosurgeon, for surgery on my back. I met with Dr. Harsh around the end of March. By now the pain in my leg and back were requiring me to take about 50mg of codeine a day, and I was spending a good part of the day sleeping.

On my first visit with Dr. Harsh, after looking at my MRI's, he walks back into the room and poses the following question, “Do you know you have a tumor wrapped around your spine?” I didn't of course; I thought it was a herniated disk and a problem with my knee. He explained that he thought it was benign since the bone around my spine had shaped itself to the shape of the tumor. Which he told me took a long time to happen. He explained the tumor was in a very difficult to reach location, having wrapped itself around my spine and grown through the nerve canals to my legs. He was going to neurosurgeon conference the following week where he could ask other neurosurgeons about my problem and hopefully have some constructive answers. .

I was supposed to have biopsy done around the end of March but something happened in the scheduling department and this was postponed to mid-April. By this point, I was tired of the waiting and wanted to know then if this thing was malignant. So, Malensek scheduled me as an in-patient to have the biopsy done, which was around the first of April. The results came back benign. Which meant I needed full open back surgery to have it removed.

About two weeks after this diagnosis, Dr. Harsh informed me he found me a neurosurgeon who had experience operating on these types of tumors, Dr. Rhines at MD Anderson. All we had to do now was get my medical records transferred to MD Anderson. A process that we begun in Early April and didn't finish until Early May. I was told a week after we started this process that it was done, but I never heard word from MD Anderson on when my appointment was. Finally, I found out that St. Vincent's hadn't sent all my records, most but not all, so I had to make some phone calls to get the girl to finish sending them. If I remember correctly, her excuse was she became sick and my case slipped through the cracks. By this point I was taking between 100-120 milligrams of codeine a day and sleeping most of it to survive. The good news is, somehow by using all my skips and my most of my teachers working with me on leaving early and arriving late to class, I managed to finish my second year of law school. I ended up with 3 A's, 1 B and a C. The class with the C I had a 95 on the mid term and 85 on the final but fell to a C do to lack of attendance. This never seemed fair to me.

Upon visiting MD Anderson (this was early May) and meeting with Dr. Rhines, he wanted to rerun all my tests, the same tests that they were waiting on from St. Vincent's before they could see me. I thought this was a waste of time and wanted to get the surgery over with and return to my normal life. I was looking at about a two month recovery time once they did the back surgery. But, they insisted on another biopsy and round of MRI's. We ran the tests --the biopsy being the worst part since I felt the 6 th of the 7 th specimen being taken. I screamed so loud the people in the next office got up to see what was going on. The Dr. doing the biopsy said she had given me as much Vercet as she could and asked if I wanted to stop the biopsy there. She said most patients were knocked out by this point and was surprised I wasn't. I asked her if that meant if I would have to have another biopsy and she said “Probably.” I told her to go ahead and finish, I would rather feel the pain again then go through an entire biopsy. Fortunately, the last of her clippings didn't hurt.

After this round of tests we flew back home to await the results. About a week later, on a Friday morning, I received a call from the Brain and Spine Center informing me the biopsy had come back malignant, the type of cancer being Lymphoma. Two pieces of good news came with this diagnosis, the first was since I had to have cancer this was about the best kind I could have. The best in the since it was easy to treat. Two, that since it was malignant it was out of the Brain and Spine Center's control, so there would be no cutting into my spine.

We flew back out to Houston in early June, June 6 th I believe, for a three or four day meeting with the Lymphoma clinic. On my first day of meeting with the clinic, Dr. Fanale became my new Doctor, I learned the tumor was in stage 4 and they wanted to begin treatment immediately. Infusion Therapy inserted a port into my right arm and I had my first round of chemo June 10 th . I haven't left Houston since we arrived, I packed for 4 days so I have had to buy, and have shipped, a lot of clothes. I haven't been home since (today is October 1 st ).

The chemo cycle they placed me on is 8 treatments, 1 every 21 days, making my last treatment around early November. I was told there is an 80% chance this will clear up the cancer and I will never have to worry about it again. There is of course a 20% chance they will have to do more.

Again, the scariest part to all this is I began seeing Doctors in September and after 7 Doctors in 7 months, I didn't get an accurate diagnosis until June. The Lymphoma department told me if they wouldn't have caught it when they did they estimated I had about 6 months to live. This was due to the fact that the cancer was inside the 3 rd layer of my spine and working its way into to the 2 nd layer. Once inside the second layer it would be in the same spinal fluid as my brain. Thus, these fluids would have carried the cancer into my brain and turned it into brain cancer. They estimated this probably would have happened around late July or early August. The Brain and Spine Center began inserting a second type of chemo directly into my spinal fluid as insurance, in case the cancer did make it inside the second layer.