CANCER CALL: A HEALTH CHALLENGE REMINDER

A cancer call is never the wrong number. It’s a confirmation of all the testing you’ve already gone through.

The doctors who make cancer calls don’t ask for your name and DOB on the phone. They know it’s you.

If someone else answers the phone, they know it’s for you, and you’ve got to take it. A cancer call confirmation is the next ride on the cancer treatment carousel.

It’s not a merry-go-round, more of a scary-go-round, dialing up fear and dread on top of the fear and dread you felt during cancer testing.

All you can do it hang on, hang on tight. But how?

I keep my eyes wide open to learn how to do things better. Better than what? Better than I think of on my own.

Since a lumpy neck spot gave me a cancer call and set me spinning on the cancer treatment carousel, I’ve kept a look out for books dealing with the topic. As a writer with loads to say, I’ve contacted a few authors about their experience.

As an empathetic sort of man, I watched for other men tagged with HPV neck cancer. It’s a club with a growing membership in music, in sports, and in the business of business.

Cancer, and the cancer survivor club, is a group no one looks forward to joining at first. But, it’s what we do after the cancer call that is most telling. From healthcentral.com:

“I think anytime you’re faced with a terminal illness, the question becomes: What did I do with my life? What’s the mark that I left on this earth?” Michael said. “All I have to do is convince people to get a vaccine that’s on the market right now. So my legacy is really quite simple: It’s education and awareness. I feel like I’ve got kind of a leg up in that regard.”

Cancer Call Next Man Up: Rob Paulsen

HPV neck cancer survivors don’t all write books about their run through cancer land, it just seems that way. Writers gonna write about feelings, and cancer comes with a load of feelings.

Rob Paulsen’s book was co-authored with a guy from People Magazine. Mr. Paulsen is a well known and respected guy with a story to tell.

From amazon.com:

Voice Lessons tells the heartwarming and life-affirming story of Rob’s experience with an aggressive cancer treatment and recovery regimen, which luckily led to a full recovery. Rob quickly returned to doing what he loves most, but with a much deeper appreciation of what he came so close to losing. His new lease on life inspired him to rededicate himself to his fans, particularly the new friends he made along the way: hundreds of sick children and their families. Rob said it best himself: “I can not only continue to make a living, but make a difference, and I can’t wait to use that on the biggest scale that I can.”

HPV neck cancer now has a voice after Michael Douglas served time as the face of HPV neck cancer.

In 2013 People Magazine printed a clarification on Mr. Douglas’ earlier comments that included this quote from a medical source:

“Oral sex doesn’t cause oral cancer,” says Dr. Maura Gillison, a head and neck medical oncologist and professor at Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center. “It’s a means by which to acquire an infection that rarely causes cancer.”

A recent study by Dr. Gillison found that 1 percent of the U.S. population has the HPV 16 oral infection, the form of HPV associated with cancers of the oropharanx or middle throat. It typically takes two to three decades before someone with this virus develops cancer, Dr. Gillison noted.

Apparently the ‘infection that rarely causes cancer’ landed me on the cancer call list. On one hand it carried the usual terror of seeing myself as a cancer victim headed toward a miserable cancer death.

On the other hand, I found it hilarious in a gallows humor sort of way. I was going to go out based on activities that came with hard to follow directions, “There, no, not there. There, right there. Are you even listening?”

What?

If that sounds familiar, then you’re going to like the book I’ve written. I’m sitting on it after three rounds of extensive professional editing to create a permanent work of art, instead of a temporary public service announcement.

Since we share the combined joy and sorrow of human relations in acquiring HPV neck cancer, my book is a straight shot through cancer testing and cancer treatment that loops back through the past decades of dating misadventures for additional insight.

Surviving cancer and cancer treatment is no laughing matter. It’s facing death with a certain determination, after which we continue on our path, or we live our pathology.

My big take away during radiation rounds? I didn’t hear the docs, nurses, or techs say, “”There, no, not there. There, right there. Are you even listening?”

Even the chemo came with a twist. After doing everything in a responsible cancer treatment consumer way, my wife drove us to my first infusion. All of the insurance protocols were checked and re-checked, everything permissioned, when I called to re-re-check one last time.

Me: This is David Gillaspie.

I answered all of the other identifying questions before the insurance lady said, “Mr. Gillaspie, we show your insurance has been canceled since the first of the month.”

Wife: You’re calling insurance now? Didn’t you call earlier?

Me: Yes. Now they told me our insurance has been canceled.

Wife: What?

That’s my story. What would you do next?