Rodney Curtis

Oops, it’s gotten a little dusty around here over the past week. Give the man remission and he flies the coop, seemingly. Don’t worry, there’s lots to report and share. Where to begin is the tough part. Maybe I should start with why I’ve been sitting in a Muskegon hospital for the better part of three days.

My extended family had been planning a trip to our favorite Lake Michigan location. I went to summer camp here for four years; the girls go to Blue Lake here, we’ve rented cottages from numerous people since back when a week on the lake cost about $300; and we all just love to relax and plop down and think about nothing for a while. There’s no cell service, no internet, and I think the TV may get I Love Lucy, but nobody has flipped it on.

Before I made the drive I was all congested for most of the week leading up to vacation. It was knocking me down something fierce and I would have to take baby steps, relax, a few more baby steps, then maybe nap. It kind of seemed to me like THAT was how leukemia was supposed to feel. A couple of my oncologists looked me over but just prescribed some more cold medicine and I was off to the cottage.

The first night there, though, before everyone else showed up, I had The Incident. I woke up unable to breathe and alerted the rest of the darkened place by pounding the walls, floors and even the door as I lurched out into the kitchen. Big Brother Dean, from California, grabbed hold of me and was able to hear me say “water.”

Somehow in his arms I was able to exhale, maybe I was able to breathe all along and had only been trying to inhale but to say that moment was one of the most frightening of my life would be an understatement. A little water and a late night phone call to a third oncologist helped ease the situation.

The next morning, on the long-distance advice of my Aunt-In-A-Cape Roberta, my brother Dean drove me down to a Muskegon emergency room and, needing to switch hospitals on me due to procedures, it turns out I have, (or HAD at this point), “an impressive blood clot, the size of a half-eaten hot dog.”

The amazing Doctor Mallon has spent the last two or three days pounding the clot, which rested near my heart, with a series of chemicals and then a tiny balloon and then something I referred to as sort of a carpet cleaner, (he liked the analogy). It wasn’t the exact way I thought of spending my vacation, a tour of Muskegon hospitals, but they are very impressive over here on this side of the state.

He said cancer drugs and this large medical port inside of me were to blame for the blood clot; it was nothing I did or didn’t do.

This is the first time I’ve had Web access so I think I can be forgiven for not tidying up around here or answering emails or phone calls that have come in. This hospital wireless service seems strong and solid, far more so than me. They are going to release me to spend a day or two longer at the cottage, then it’s back to Troy and my newest round of chemo beginning on Monday. I’ll certainly have lots more to tell when that begins.

But through all of this — well, most of it anyway — there has been an acute awareness that I’m in remission and whatever life feels the need to throw at me it’s okay. I was kind of wondering how this whole cancer experience would change me and there, right there, seems to be one of the core fundamental shifts. Let’s see if it’s real or lasts.

I can do without the late night scary bits though.