I WILL BE FINE!!! However, there’s really no getting around this, I have cancer. I have a biopsy surgery this Friday and my wife cannot be at the hospital with me :-( I think it’s probably more stressful for her at this point and that’s where I’d really appreciate some prayers.

My wife and I got the diagnosis on Thursday of this week after having a PET scan on Monday.

Its a bit of a circuitous route on how I got here. I caught a bit of a stomach bug back in mid March that lingered a couple weeks with some odd heartburn and nausea. My general doc was part of a group of doctors at HMG that decided to leave and start a new practice, but HMG furloughed all of them immediately rather than allow them to work out their resignation period to 9/1; HMG just folded their offices in Charlotte. So I struck out on my own to work with a gastro doc. He ordered some blood work that came back with highly elevated white blood cell count (181 where it should be under 10). That lead him to ordering a CT scan, thinking he was looking for a GI issue such as something in my gall bladder. Instead, the CT scan showed two tumors on my heart. They asked me to check into the hospital, where they did lots more tests that determined my heart function was fine. They then decided to shift me to out patient working with a cardiologist. A family friend and cardiologist help further narrow the focus and got me hooked up with a thoracic surgeons group. Marlea and I met Dr Krout last week and he went through my scan and outlined a plan.

The tumors are not actually on my heart; they are on the pericardial sac surrounding and protecting the heart. The doctors have characterized these as ‘exceedingly rare’ and ‘we just don’t see this’, so they’re taking a pretty aggressive yet conservative approach (aggressive from a let’s go now, yet conservative in procedures). The PET scan showed low grade cancerous activity in both tumors and one lymph node near the heart. The lymph node is doing exactly what it’s supposed to by trying to filter out this contagion from my system. One tumor is inside the pericardial sac, but they can see space between the tumor and heart, so they don’t believe it is affecting my heart other than apply a little pressure on it. Depending on what a biopsy shows, that will drive whether they feel they need to surgically remove the tumors. The biopsy is easy, removing the tumors is more invasive (essentially heart surgery) the the one inside the pericardial sac is next to the thinnest walled area of the heart.

My wife and I have stressed through this at times, but we’re in a pretty good place with the approach. My sister and my cousin have been amazingly supportive as has Bank of America and my boss.

There’s obviously more to unfold with this, but I’ll close for now with this: the simple truth is I have cancer... BUT CANCER DOES NOT HAVE ME!!!