One Year Down, Four to Go
I sat in my car with my head resting in my hands, not wanting to believe that I was just diagnosed with cancer. As I sat there trying to control my emotions, the song "Vision Thing" (live version with Lars Nootland) by Simple Minds was playing, which is about the celebration of life. At that moment, I wasn't too sure what to expect with life and this new fight that I have to undertake.
It was exactly one-year ago when I was diagnosed with cancer, and as my doctor said when he walked into the exam room, "Well, Joe…one year down, four to go." To be deemed cancer-free, for five years at six-month intervals, I will have tumor tracing, CAT scans performed, and doctor visits. It seemed like yesterday that I was being rolled into the operating room with the surgical team telling me to be calm, and all I remember is looking up, seeing bright lights, and then waking up in the recovery room.
As I watched the MLB All-Star Game this past July, at one point in between innings they paused to remember everyone fighting cancer with their Stand Up to Cancer campaign. As they held the signs with the names written on them, I knew that now my name was on that sign also. I continue to write about my fight because what I know best to write and publish my stories. So here I've taken my other stories on my fight and made one story as a remembrance of one year down with four to go.
Part I — The Diagnosis
Stage 1, but the game goes on
I always cringed when I heard the word cancer. It scared me to the point of making my mind think that it's the end. I would always tell myself, I hope that in my life I never get cancer and have to deal with it.
Well, my most feared thought came true — I was diagnosed with Stage 1 Classic Seminoma.
My mind went blank, and I looked at my wife and said "Yes" after I hung up the phone with my doctor's office. I'm not going into great detail about my diagnosis, but I just want to express that it's important to get checked by a doctor when something doesn't feel right. Before I knew it, I was being rolled on a gurney into the operating room. The hardest part for me in this journey, besides telling my wife, was my family, especially my parents. In life, there are phone calls that are hard to make, and that was the hardest.
Now back to baseball and the first inning in my new game.
Even though this is a baseball publication and I write about it on a freelance basis, I tried to forget about everything in life, especially baseball. The only thing on my mind was cancer, doctors, tests and the list goes on and on. My mind would wander into the unknown, and I would just not want to think about anything, especially baseball. As weird as life is, baseball was and is still there. I would be reminded of the game by the littlest things in life, from a person wearing a Yankees baseball cap in the doctor's office to a used, waterlogged, dirty baseball sitting in the grass by my house. The list goes on. I gave in and said to myself, besides my family and friends to get me through this, baseball will too.
I got into baseball because, when I was a young teenager, my late grandmother put together a scrapbook of baseball articles and told me that "you can do this." I read the articles with great interest, and the idea came into my mind of writing a story – my own story. Today I have my own scrapbook of at least five hundred authored articles, contributed to the book Baseball Stories for the Soul and had my own baseball podcast.
So, the innings of this story are about two things that I care about in life now: baseball and cancer. When I began to do research on cancer, I also realized that Major League Baseball is so involved with finding a cure for cancer. MLB and its teams have donated more than $50 million to Stand Up for Cancer, support cancer clinical trials, and host the annual Mother's & Father's Day Cancer Awareness games. Plus, they support so much more. So I felt I wasn't alone from a baseball standpoint. That dark cloud, each day, became more sunny. The innings of life grew by the day.
In the last inning of this story, the scar I have is mine and only mine. This is my battle scar. The battle in the fight against cancer.
Until then, see you at the park.
Part II — After the Diagnosis.
My continued cancer fight.
Since I was diagnosed with cancer last June, it has not only been an emotional rollercoaster but also a constant reminder of doctor appointments, scans, tests, and the support that is needed from my family, friends, and, believe it or not, writing and baseball.
I am reminded that prevention from the cancer returning and continued treatment needed for the next five years are important in the detection and recovery process. For five years at six-month intervals, I will have tumor tracing, CAT scans performed, and doctor visits. I look at it as another chapter in life, just like a writer keeps adding chapters to an unpublished book or a pitcher dueling batters inning after inning.
It is true that I tried to forget about everything in life, especially baseball. The only thing on my mind was cancer, doctors, tests, and the list goes on and on. My mind would wander into the unknown, and I would just not want to think about anything, especially baseball. As weird as life is, baseball was still there. I would be reminded of the game by the littlest things in life, from a person wearing a Yankees baseball cap in the doctor's office to a used, waterlogged, dirty baseball sitting in the grass by my house.
Since I was 17, I've been writing and having articles published in newspapers, magazines and books. My writing has mostly focused on baseball, and it was when I was a young teenager that my late grandmother put together a scrapbook of baseball articles and told me that "you can do this." I read the articles with great interest, and the idea came into my mind of writing my own story. Well, cancer is my story now.
When I hear people complain about some of the mundane things in life, I think of how appreciative I am for everything I achieved and the support my family gives me. I will admit, there are times that I think about cancer and question, "Why do I have it?" I wish it would go away and be as easy as kneeling down, saying a prayer, and it's gone. But in reality, that doesn't happen. In reality, it's an everyday fight. It's like playing in a game to win and giving 100% effort.
I also don't want people to feel bad for me and ask, "What can they do?" In reality, nothing can be done. In reality, this is my fight and journey of staying healthy keeping a smile on my face. Don't get me wrong; I appreciate that people do ask, and it is comforting to hear words of support.
In a letter that sports columnist Ira Berkow wrote to me, his words of support on writing were, "Anyway, keep at it. Keep trying. Try not to get discouraged. Like most other things, the harder one works at writing, the better one gets."
Just like writing, it's the same in my fight against cancer, and I won't get discouraged. I will work hard at fighting it and get better at it.
Until then, see you at the fight.
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