Before you read this, I apologize for its length, however, I hope you'll read all of it as it's a story that my family and I have lived through =).
In February of 2005, my father, Benedict, was attending a lunch meeting with one of his clients. Nothing out of the ordinary for him, just another day on the job, until he left.
As he was leaving, heading back to his car, he felt a sharp pain his back, it became completely locked up and he was unable to move. He had to be taken to the emergency room, and right away, x-rays showed that one of his vertebrae, the T-5, had collapsed on him, causing a lot of pain in his back as well as pinching the nerves that were enclosed.
After a day or so in the hospital of the doctors running tests and trying to figure out why his T-5 had collapsed, they discovered that my dad had multiple myeloma. My family's initial reaction was ok, what is multiple myeloma, what do we need to do to get rid of it, and how long will it affect my dad (thinking it was just a sickness, or a temporary type of thing). Then the ball was dropped on us. Multiple myeloma is a cancer of the plasma cell that is incurable, but treatable. From what I was told and from what I could gather, it is essentially a form of blood cancer that affects the production of antibodies. We were told one of the characteristics is an abnormal amount of plasma cells which in turn leads sometimes to osteoporosis, particularly in the hips, back, ribs and skull, which was most likely the cause for my dad's T-5 collapsing (more information here).
The initial reaction to the news was shock and devastation. Here was my father, in shape, exercising at home 3-4x a week, rarely sick, playing golf 2-3x a week, quitting smoking, running a successful business, learning how to play the guitar, one son just getting into college and one son just about to get out of college... a point life most would say could be seen as sitting on top of the world... and he has multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer that showed up with no previous symptoms or signs of less than great health until his back collapsed. He was (and still is) the strong father figure in my life, the one who always fought through adversity, the one holding strong through all of life's challenges, always looking to advance in some way, the problem solver and the man I always expected there to be there, well... forever... and in February, he looked nothing like himself. In a matter of hours, he couldn't really move, he was on a morphine drip, bed ridden, and for the first time in my life, he looked scared. I didn't know what to do but to just sit there and hope that everything would be like everyone told me... that everything would be ok.
From there, he was quickly transferred to the City of Hope where he began 2 strong sessions of chemotherapy which left him sick, in pain, no appetite, no energy, constantly tired and sleeping, and unable to stay awake while we visited him on occasion. That was only the visible part. On the inside, his body was being torn to pieces, the chemo killing his good cells along w/ the cancerous ones. His red blood cell, white blood cell, and platelet counts dropped to less than 10% of normal levels, making him extremely succeptable to getting sick (hence when we visited, we were required to wear facemasks and latex gloves, and him not being able to leave the room). It was during this time I utilized my netflix membership and brought him a dvd a day =).
The good thing was, after the first session of chemo, the cancerous cells had been reduced to a low enough level where he could undergo a new procedure called a "Tandem Autologous Stem Cell Transplant" where his own stem cells were extracted from his body and frozen, during which time, he underwent the second and stronger session of chemo that killed all of his blood cells, at which time, his stem cells were re-inserted into his body in order for him to rebuild his blood counts. The procedure was finished mid-december 2005, and amazingly, he was able to make it home for Christmas dinner.
Once home, then began the process of getting everything back up to the speed of life. My father spent the next 5 or 6 months getting a lot of rest, doing a lot of testing to check on blood levels, and building back up his endurance to the point where he could stay awake and relatively active for an entire half day... then an entire 3/4 of a day... and finally a full day. In June or July (my memory fails me) my dad grew extremely tired of being home along all day, and so we added a 5th member to our family to keep him company at home. At about 10-11 lbs and a foot and a half in length, Pepper, a german shepherd puppy with probably too much energy, came home to become my dad's new favorite son =).
Part II to follow...
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