Chicken Soup for the Cancer Survivor's Soul (5 page)

Moreover, the mass appeared to branch out and invade surrounding tissue. This seemed to confirm the lab finding that the tumor was malignant. If true, Kassell realized, Craig could never be cured.

Besides, he thought, if he operated, Craig had a one-in–five chance of dying as a result of the surgery. And even if the operation succeeded, he wondered, what would Craig really gain? A few months of life?

Kassell called Kluge with the bad news. “Some things are beyond medical help,” he said.

“Are you absolutely sure you can’t treat it?” Kluge persisted. “Please think about it some more.”

Kassell began searching within himself. The father of three girls, he asked what he would want for them in a similar circumstance. He realized he would give them a fighting chance—despite the risks.

Kassell spoke to the Shergolds in late November. “I might be able to help your son,” he said. The surgical risks were great, the benefits chancy. All he could do, Kassell said, was surgically remove as much of the tumor as possible and hit the remainder with the gamma knife. This might buy Craig some time. Kassell suggested the couple ponder their alternatives over Christmas and let him know their decision after the first of the year.

For Marion, the decision was agonizing. She didn’t want to put Craig through any more pain. Ultimately, she and Ernie decided to let Craig make the decision.

“Mum,” he said, “no pain, no gain.”

Surgery was scheduled for March 1 at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center. That morning, Marion and Ernie stood at their son’s bedside as Craig reassured them. “I’m going to be all right, you’ll see.”

Moments later, as orderlies wheeled him toward the operating suite, Craig, clutching his stuffed elephant, called out, “I love you, Mum and Dad.” He then began singing, “I Just Called to Say I Love You.”

Kassell removed a two-inch oval of bone from the top of Craig’s skull. Carefully separating his cerebral hemispheres, then splitting the band of fibers joining the two halves, Kassell found the grayish-white tumor almost in the exact center of the brain. It was encapsulated by a membrane—which had not shown up clearly on the scans.
Good,
Kassell thought,
the tumor is much more contained than I had dared hope.

Kassell sliced open the membrane and began snipping and suctioning out the tumor. Moment by moment, his excitement mounted. This tumor did not appear malignant. Could it have somehow changed character since the British lab analysis two years earlier? The more he cut away, the more convinced he became that Craig might beat the odds.

Three hours into the operation, one of his resident physicians grew concerned that Kassell was moving too deep into Craig’s brain. “Don’t go in there,” the resident cautioned.

Kassell paused for a moment. The operation had been a big gamble from the start. Now, as he looked through the operating microscope and saw the final remains of the mass nestled in Craig’s brain, he knew he had to gamble again. He went even deeper.

Kassell left only one small section, mostly scar tissue, in a very risky area. The tissue appeared dead, incapable of ever regrowing.

The surgery took more than five hours. Kassell did not need the gamma knife. Drained and exhilarated, he left the operating room and went to tell Craig’s parents the good news. Marion leaped up and kissed him.

In the intensive-care unit, Marion leaned over Craig’s bedside and whispered, “Craig, the cancer is gone. All gone.”

Craig’s eyes flickered open, and he smiled.

Craig’s recovery was remarkable. His speech became faster and clearer immediately. He pronounced words that had been impossible for him before the operation. Two days after surgery, when Kassell walked into Craig’s room, Craig said, “Doc, you’re supercalifragilisticexpiali–docious”— and broke out laughing.

Lab tests found no trace of malignant cells in the tumor tissue. No one would ever know for certain what eliminated them. The important thing was that Craig’s tumor was benign.

A few weeks later, John Kluge came to the hospital to meet the Shergolds. When the businessman entered the room, Marion grasped his hand and thanked him. “You are our guardian angel,” she said.

Kluge handed Craig a two-headed quarter. “This way,” he said, grinning, “you’ll never lose.”

Then Craig presented a gift to Kluge: a mounted photograph of himself in a triumphant “Rocky” pose taken by his mother several months earlier. In it, Craig wore boxing trunks and gloves; an American flag hung in the background. The inscription read: “Thank you for helping me win the biggest fight of all.”

John Pekkanen

Hope

As I ate breakfast one morning, I overheard two oncol–ogists conversing. One complained bitterly, “You know, Bob, I just don’t understand it. We used the same drugs, the same dosage, the same schedule and the same entry criteria. Yet I got a 22 percent response rate and you got a 74 percent. That’s unheard of for metastatic cancer. How do you do it?”

His colleague replied, “We’re both using Etoposide, Platinum, Oncovin and Hydroxyurea. You call yours EPOH. I tell my patients I’m giving them HOPE. As dismal as the statistics are, I emphasize that we have a chance.”

William M. Buchholz, M.D.

Amy Graham

W
here there’s life, there’s hope.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

After flying all night from Washington, D.C., several years ago, I was tired as I arrived at the Mile High Church in Denver to conduct three services and hold a workshop on prosperity consciousness. As I entered the church, Dr. Fred Vogt asked me, “Do you know about the Make-a-Wish Foundation?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Well, Amy Graham has been diagnosed with terminal leukemia. They gave her three days. Her dying wish was to attend your services.”

I was shocked. I felt a combination of elation, awe and doubt. I couldn’t believe it. I thought kids who were dying wanted to go see Disneyland, or meet Sylvester Stallone, Mr. “T” or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Surely they wouldn’t want to spend their final days listening to Mark Victor Hansen. Why would a kid with only a few days to live want to come hear a motivational speaker? My thoughts were interrupted....

“Here’s Amy,” Vogt said, as he put her frail hand in mine. There stood a 17-year-old girl wearing a bright red and orange turban to cover her head, which was bald from all the chemotherapy treatments. Her bent body was frail and weak. She said, “My two goals were to graduate from high school and to attend your sermon. My doctors didn’t believe I could do either. They didn’t think I’d have enough energy. I got discharged into my parents’ care.... This is my mom and dad.”

Tears welled in my eyes; I was choked up. My equilibrium was shaken. I was totally moved. I cleared my throat, smiled and said, “You and your folks are our guests. Thanks for wanting to come.” We hugged, dabbed our eyes and separated.

I’ve attended many healing seminars in the United States, Canada, Malaysia, New Zealand and Australia. I’ve watched the best healers at work and I’ve studied, researched, listened, pondered and questioned what worked, how and why.

That Sunday afternoon I held a seminar, which Amy and her parents attended. The audience was packed to overflowing with over a thousand attendees eager to learn, grow and become more fully human.

I humbly asked the audience if they wanted to learn a healing process that might serve them for life. From the stage it appeared that everyone’s hand was raised high in the air. They unanimously wanted to learn.

I taught the audience how to vigorously rub their hands together, separate them by two inches and feel the healing energy. Then I paired them off with a partner to feel the healing energy emanating from themselves to another. I said, “If you need a healing, accept one here and now.”

The audience was in alignment and we shared an ecstatic feeling. I explained that everyone has healing energy and healing potential. Five percent of us have it so dramatically pouring forth from our hands that we could make it our profession. I said, “This morning I was introduced to Amy Graham, a 17-year-old, whose final wish was to be at this seminar. I want to bring her up here and let you all send healing life-force energy toward her. Perhaps we can help. She did not request it. I am just doing this spontaneously because it feels right.”

The audience chanted, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Amy’s dad led her up onto the stage. She looked frail from all the chemotherapy, too much bed rest and an absolute lack of exercise. (The doctors hadn’t let her walk for the two weeks prior to this seminar.)

The group warmed up their hands and sent her healing energy, after which they gave her a tearful standing ovation.

Two weeks later, she called to say that her doctor had discharged her after a total remission. Two years later she called to say she was married.

I have learned never to underestimate the healing power we all have. It is always there to use for the highest good. We just have to remember and use it.

Mark Victor Hansen

Wild Bill

I always thought I’d live to be 83! Why that age, I don’t know, but now I’ll be grateful to make it to 58. When I am 58, Rachel will be 12—old enough to understand what is happening. Not that it is ever easy to lose a mom—even when “Mom” is really an aunt.

Actually I am grateful for each day. Every morning when my alarm goes off, I lie in bed a few minutes. Whatever the weather, I am happy to be able to stretch my legs out, give my dog a pat, and thank God for another day. My favorite days are those when the sun streams in through my lace curtains, but I even like the sound of rain pattering on my window or the wind moving the trees against the side of the house. It is in the morning that I feel the best. It is morning that gives me hope.

Nearly two-and-a-half years ago, a tumor on my left adrenal gland ruptured in the middle of the night, leaving me near death from excessive blood loss. As I lay on the operating table, I thought of my three grown children, of my unfinished business, but mostly I thought of Rachel, whom I’d left crying hysterically in the living room of our home when the paramedics hauled me off. Somehow, I made it through the surgery, made a rather astounding recovery and returned to work in six weeks. Rachel and I resumed our lives.

The tumor was strange. No one could clearly say what it was except that it was malignant. Five major medical centers couldn’t identify it. I began calling it “Wild Bill.”

For a little more than two years, I did well except for a bowel obstruction that responded to non-surgical treatment. Every three months I visited an oncologist in Chicago who did tests that I passed with flying colors. After a while, I did not think much about “Wild Bill.”

After New Year’s this year, I began feeling excessively tired, my back ached more than usual, and I was running a low-grade fever. I was admitted to the hospital for tests. Everything from active TB (I had been exposed at work) to an arthritic condition was considered. As part of the work–up, an MRI of my abdomen was ordered. The test was supposed to take 45 minutes to an hour but stretched into two hours and beyond. My mind and heart raced and tears flowed into my ears like a river. It was the first time I cried over my illness. I could not wipe my tears away and no one could hold my hand, but I knew what the MRI showed was not good. The next day a needle biopsy of part of the tumor confirmed that “Wild Bill” had returned. I felt lost and depressed. All I could think about was Rachel.

A rather smug but well-qualified surgeon came to see me. “We’ll do an exploratory lap and see what’s what and remove what we can, but I give you no guarantees,” he said.

When I woke up from the surgery, I listened to those five disappointing hopeless words: “We couldn’t get it all.” They’ve yet to explain exactly what they could and could not get. Depending on whom I talked with, I had at least four different versions. Maddening.

At first my recovery was fraught with a terrible sadness that I couldn’t shake. I got thinner and thinner and I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep either and hurt too much to toss and turn, so I would lie like a board all night. Even though my family, friends and coworkers all rallied around me, I could not feel any hope. I even wished I had died the night the original tumor ruptured.

I can’t say I snapped out of it. It was more like a gradual slide. I started chemotherapy and even though I was fearful of that, it gave me hope. Reading books was very positive for me—I read of countless hopeless cases who recovered or lived way beyond expectations. Lived good lives, too. I began feeling better. With the help of a friend and a kind priest, I learned how to pray again. Now Rachel and I pray together every night. I stopped wishing I had died that terrible night in December of 1992.

Over the last couple of years, so many good things have happened that I would have missed. My older son published his first book, my younger son’s acting career took off again and my daughter and her boyfriend built a beautiful home for their future together. Rachel learned to ride her bike and to read. I resumed an old friendship with a cherished friend. Things that I took for granted were important to me. My sister moved back from California and we can see each other so much more often. If I had died that night I would not have been here to say goodbye to my own dad, who died last fall. Rachel may have never recovered from the trauma and suddenness of it all.