Patient's Stories

“The way I see it”
Ron Brown, Cancer survivor 3 years and counting.
 

I can’t say one good thing about the, John Dingle V.A. Medical Center in Detroit Michigan. In fact I can’t sum up all the good things about them in a 1,000 page book.

What I can say, is that if I were diagnosed with cancer, I would want to be treated there and if the treatment didn’t work anymore, I would want to be placed in their hospice and palliative care unit. Oh Wait! I’ve already done that. I went there to die and they saved my life. In fact the doctor I credit with saving my life is Dr. Rob. Although not a surgeon or an oncologist, he was the super hero that showed up in the nick of time. He teaches at Wayne State, where he is the head of clinical research and he heads up the palliative care team at the V.A. Hospital across the street. According to him it was a team effort. But I know better. He was the only doctor that I got to talk to and the only Doctor that heard me cry out for help.
 

It’s not everyday that you get handed a death sentence and when you do, it hits you like a ton of bricks. In November of 2003 I was diagnosed with lung cancer in both lungs and it had spread into the bone and chest wall. It was suggested that I was terminal from the start and the best we could hope for was to control the pain. I had a large baseball size tumor in the upper left lung and 2 smaller spots in the upper right lung.
 

Well, when it rains it pours. I had just moved from Florida to Michigan in the middle of 2002, in order to take care of a legal problem with my x-wife. I had taken a leave of absence from my job in Florida and had taken a temp job until I could get the legal matter resolved. I was renting a 2 bedroom townhouse and just when I think things can’t get worse, I get laid off from the temp job and then the week I get called back to work, I collapsed from the pain in my upper left shoulder. Now faced with not being able to work, my employer said, don’t come back without a doctor’s release. No insurance, no job, bills piling up, and unemployment runs out. Thank god I am a veteran. So I went to the V.A. hospital only to find that I had lung cancer. Now all the other things that were bad and troublesome were of little concern.
 

The V.A. had started radiation treatments about mid December of 03 and about a week and a half later I couldn’t take the pain anymore. So now they put me on morphine pills to take at home. They helped some but the pain kept getting worse day by day. I couldn’t start chemo because the medical port that was used to inject the chemicals in to had been delayed being surgically installed because of where it was to be placed. Now the beginning of Jan 04, I couldn’t take the pain anymore, so they placed me in intermediate care. I had not slept in about 5 days because of the pain. I remember being hooked up to an IV and a doctor looked over the rail of my gurney and said hi, I am Dr Rob from the palliative care team and we are going to be getting your pain under control. As they wheeled me away and up to my room I finally was falling asleep.
 

I felt a hand gently touch my forearm and I woke to see Doctor Rob standing over me. He said I just wanted to check on you and make sure that the pain medication was working. I said it’s been a while since anyone could sneak up on me like that. Now for the first time, I had been pain free and able to sleep. I looked at the clock and it was about 1:30 am. I thought to myself what kind of doctors visits you at 1:30 in the morning. Now I know it’s the best kind. The next few visits he got to know me better and I got to know him and Sheila the Clinical Social worker for the V.A. In one of the visits Dr. Rob said “You know it’s too bad that I don’t have a crystal ball that I could see the future and be able to tell you how much time you have left. All we can do is draw from what other patients with the same case as you have done. If I could give you an approximate time would you like to know this so you can better use this time to do things that you need or want to do?” My answer was quick. NO! I had a hard time accepting the fact that I was going to die and I didn’t want to dwell about the time I had left.

 

As time went by the cancer had taken me down to skin and bone. I was now about 87 pounds and could barley walk. I got the great idea that I wanted to go home and leave the hospital. So, home I went. Bad mistake! By the end of the second day I called Dr. Rob on his cell phone and said I can’t make it. So he arranged for me to be placed in Hospice where they could keep me from being in pain as the cancer grew worse. Dr. Rob arranged for me to continue my radiation treatments while I was in hospice even though my oncologist and a few others were against it. I remember when he said “We want to be able to say that we did all we can do for you and not just keep you comfortable.” I remember the night that I was admitted to hospice, Sheila was there and Dr. McDonald. By now I couldn’t put one foot before the other. I laid on the gurney and looked at Sheila and Said “I am dying aren’t I?” Dr. McDonald shook his head yes and said we have done all we can for you and now we will try to keep you comfortable. I said I am not ready to go yet. Sheila had tears in her eyes as did I and she took my hand and said “I wish there were more that we could do for you.” They wheeled me once again to a room and said they would be in tomorrow to check on me. That evening they brought me a food tray and as I had done for the last month and a half, I lifted the lid and became sick and threw up. The Radiation treatment had changed my sense of smell and taste. No matter how hard I tried to eat, I couldn’t because everything would come right back out. Even the smell of food would make me sick. I was having a horrible reaction to the radiation.
 

That evening I was setting on the edge of the bed and all these thoughts were going thru my head. I was dying and there was nothing anyone could do. I hadn’t seen my two boys in about 12 years. My X had hidden them from me. My fiancée and girl friend of 8 years had a blood vessel burst in her brain 7 years ago and it left her incapable of taking care of herself. I thought of life after death and the big question, is god real. Is there a heaven and hell? Where will I end up? I haven’t been the best Christian in the past but I haven’t been bad either. I had been struggling with this for a while since the onset of the cancer. That night as I set on the edge of the bed I asked God for help. I asked to see my two boys and to get Judy set up so she can take care of herself. I said I’m not asking to live forever I just need a little more time. The next morning came and so did the food tray. I lifted the lid and there was no bad smell. I took a bite and no bad taste. I started eating and before long I wasn’t 87 pounds anymore.
 

I started feeling better and better. Soon I was about 125 pounds and growing. By now I had finished the radiation treatments and I wasn’t dead. The CT scan showed a 50% decrease in the size of the tumor in the upper left lung and the right lung had not changed much. Now I started bugging Dr. Rob to see if I could take chemo. No chemo the oncologist said. So, how about surgery then. The answer was NO! I kept getting a “NO” from this oncologist that I had never even got to meet face to face. She didn’t know the first thing about me, other than my medical condition. I looked at Dr. Rob and said what would it take to make her change her mind. He said I think a phone call from the right person might do it. Now the question was the right lung. Was it cancer or not. Dr. Rob convinced them to do a biopsy of the right lung. The biopsy came back not cancer. Next thing you know I am being visited by a Surgeon. The surgeon came in my room and seemed upset and asked why would you want to have surgery when the odds are against you. He said you could loose the use of your left arm. I said you can have my foot too if you need it. You could even die on the table. I said then you will have done me a great favor because I don’t want to die of this large tumor. I have already had a taste of what it will be like and I don’t want to go that way. He said we might even make you worse. Then I reached in my wallet and pulled out a 2x2 picture of my two boys when they were small and I said I haven’t seen them in 12 years and I don’t want to die before I find them. He jumped up out of his chair and looked at me very strange with almost a tear in his eye. He said out loud to his self, “now I know why I was held over and told to come see you, now I know”. As he headed out the door he said let me see what we can do and I will get back with you. The next few weeks consisted of test to see if I could withstand surgery. I passed all the test and the surgeon came back to see me. Good news, you are a candidate for surgery, the bad news, we don’t have a surgeon here that can do it. Because of the tumor being in the bone and nerves it was not a simple surgery.
 

What a let down. A few days later Dr. Pass a surgeon shows up in my room and he tells me he will do the surgery. Come to find out he is an old colleague of Dr. Rob’s and he is also doing radical surgery at the cancer center. He said you know you can loose your arm. Yes I said. You know you can die on the table. Yes I said. You seemed well informed he said I will schedule you for surgery the week after next.
 

I couldn’t believe it. I was getting surgery. To think I was going to get an extension of time. I could not contain my joy and happiness. Dr. Rob asked if he could be in the O.R. with me. I said I would prefer it. Dr. Rob was there for me every step of the way. He held the needle for the biopsy when the other doctor refused to do it, Dr Rob said we have to do this, because his life could depend on this. I looked up and said I am beginning to think of you as a guardian angel. He said there is nothing wrong with being an angel. Dr. Rob was my voice and carried my cry for help to all the right people that could help me. I had chemo six months after surgery as a follow up. A year later I went back to see Dr. Rob and all of the people that helped me thru my bout with cancer. I knocked on Sheila’s office door and gave her a big hug. I told her “see there you got your wish” there was a lot more that was done for me. I truly believe that if not for Dr. Rob I would have been left to the fate of the cancer. Dr. Rob and his team picked up where others were ready to stop, he made sure they did all that could be done. Dr. Rob is a super hero. Although he doesn’t wear a cape and he can’t fly without a plane, he does walk very fast from Wayne State to the V.A. med building. I’ve seen him do it. It has been three years now and my last CT scan and report, just a little over a month ago said the cancer was in remission and no sign of the disease. The last visit I told Dr. Rob that I didn’t want to go thru this dying stuff anymore. I said I failed at it. In fact they called me their hospice failure. He looked at me and smiled and said well you will have to go thru it one more time but let’s hope it isn’t for a long time. I have Judy my fiancée living close to her children so they can help her incase my cancer comes back. In June I get to go to my oldest son’s wedding. I also got see my granddaughter two summers ago and I get to talk to her on the phone all the time.
 

Now I have been asked if I believe there is a God. I say yes and he has people working for him. We call them angels or super heroes. Some of them can’t fly, but they walk very fast. I know, I’ve seen him do it.

Thank you for listening Dr. Rob.