Medical mystery
My Junior year of college—2013—witnessed an unwelcomed development: I began getting headaches with no apparent cause. I remember coming home from spring training in Fort Meyers Florida and talking to Nick about my headaches; I thought I was dealing with a dependence on ibuprophen, because that or a beer seemed to be the only thing that would bring me relief. My symptoms continued to gradually increase, so I went to my primary care physician for help. His sidekicks diagnosed my problems as a possible infection, so they prescribed me antibiotics and ibuprophen and sent me on my way. None of this helped me whatsoever, and by the time finals rolled around I was dealing with some serious pain. The licensed physicians I consulted saw no reason to suspect any particular relation to cancer.
During that year, I worried a lot about trying to study abroad the following summer as I felt like the window on such an opportunity was closing. I really wanted to make it happen that summer because I didn’t want to miss any baseball. In consolation, an opportunity arose to check out a myriad of European cities. I rationalized with myself that I could get a little preview of some different cultures to get a better idea of a place to study in the future. So I went ahead and booked a bunch of flights, hostels, trains, etc. to meet my friends from high school, Ty and Tim, in Munich to join their excursion through Europe.
Upon my arrival to Munich, Germany, I felt so overwhelmed by the airport, I was happy to make it to a taxi driver and manage to communicate to him where it was that I needed to go. The ride to my hostel was a wonder, as things seemed so different from America, and this was my first exposure to a foreign country. Anyways, sixty Euro’s and a hit and miss attempt at conversation later, I found myself at my hostel in Munich. I was able to communicate through the viber app to meet at the Hofbräuhaus. I grabbed a map at the desk and made my way to meet my friends. Well eventually (after some misdirection and talking to strangers) I made my way to the beer garden and wandered all through that place until I spotted my friend, Tim, across the courtyard. It was like, “wow! Someone I know!” I had pork strips with a potato dumpling which was quite average along with a delectable darkbier, followed by my personal German favorite—the hefeweizen.
On our last day in Munich, our plan for the evening was generally to take it easy, as we had an early flight to Amsterdam ahead of us the next day. We went exploring the city, and planned that we were NOT going to go out before laying down for a rest. Then I woke up to the most stunning individual—blue eyed, blonde, British Juliet. She was with her friend, Helen, and they asked us to come out with them.
So we’re at the bar and Helen and I drank beer and talked about philosophy, really enjoying ourselves. Before I knew it, my attention was with Helen most of the time, and I hardly got to know Juliet, so when Ty and Tim retired for the night, I stayed out to make up for it.
The last thing I remembered from that night was being threatened to be thrown out of the hostel because in response to a European giving me shit, I offered a term of phrase much more cordially received in America. Next thing I knew, I was being woke up by a staff member there to clean the room, and there was no one else around me. I looked up at Tim and Ty’s bed; they were gone, and so was all my stuff. I went out of the room to realize I was locked out of the hallway where my actual room was, so I went out the window of the room I woke up in and went in the window of my appropriate room to find my phone and learn that it was 11:30 am; our flight left at 11:45. Tim and Ty had left without me, great friend, right? Just kidding, turns out, they woke me up at eight to head to the airport and I stumbled out for the toilet and never returned. I supposed I made my way into the room next to us and passed out in the identical bed of as was in our room. They couldn’t find me for the life of them, so they had to leave me behind; they thought I up and left!
Anyway, after some panic and cussing, I got my life together and hopped the next train to Amsterdam. Having no communication with my “friends,” I figured I’d just try to find them somewhere along the line. After an train trip that took all day because of some odd detour, I finally made it just before the coffee shops closed, and I indulged with a rest and a treat. Then I found our hostel with relative ease, checked into my room, then went looking for tweedle dee and tweedle dum. As I approached a staircase, I could hear their voices carrying on at the bottom of them. With perfect timing, as if in a movie, I yelled in the accent appropriate to an inside joke from their time in Prague, “Tim and Tony!!!” Their drunken eyes almost jumped from their heads upon seeing me, then we grabbed a beer and shared our sides of the story. I may have wasted a lot of money on this slip up. But hey, I hope you (reader) enjoyed the story.
Amsterdam is such a wonderful place; I really didn’t want to leave. Why is that place so spiritually lifting? Noticing how pleasant everything was, I decided I don’t want to live anywhere far from this type of culture. The staff at the Flying Pig were truly incredible human beings. Upon my arrival at the service desk, one of the employees lit up when I told him my name. He said they’ve been waiting for me as my friends told him about losing me. The progressive spirit of the city along with it’s charming design and architecture was delightful. Amsterdam really opened my eyes to a radically different society. Amsterdam is filled with attractive people and advanced fashion within a rhythm of love conducive to human happiness. To be honest, I wasn’t a huge fan for Berlin, save the awesome flea market we went to the one day. I had such a good time intertwined and bartering with so many fascinating people and stuff. This was a perfect venue for my Marboros. The last day, I made a solid decision passed on joining Tim and Tyler to see some castle they didn’t make it to and rented a bicycle to go to the Tiergraden—vibrant botanical gardens stretching several kilometers. It was a challenge, navigating to and from with a map in my face, but that was a great learning experience for me, typography 101, if you will. This huge park had trails all through it bringing you to beautiful, flowers, statues, water, fountains, grass, and on a sun-drenched afternoon.
So wrote a lot in a battered notebook during this trip, and I’m so glad I did so, as it helped me recall a lot that I would’ve forgotten. I wrote this poem while resting in our hostel in Berlin.
Make It
Stop at the intersections, take a look at the map.
I need a compass, to keep my North sense in tact.
Bring on life now, with my contexts stretched.
Because I made it through already! This time’s my best.
Well, the pain persisted throughout this trip. I was heavily medicated, as it was the only way I could keep up with our pace of exploration. We were constantly moving, walking through the cities by day and out at the bars by night. Little known to me at the time, I was doing this ten day sprint through these incredible cities with a cancerous mass pressing against my brain, causing the brutal pain. Despite the discomfort, my experiences sure did reveal the extent of wonderful different discoveries the world has to offer. There is so much out there to see, or so little, depending on how much you explore.
Upon my return home from Europe, I crashed on my buddy’s apartment floor while working on the Thiel College paint crew and playing summer ball just outside Greenville for the New Hamburg Hounds. I had a lot of fun living with Yoder and Kyle and playing ball. This gave me a chance to really focus on ball and my summer independent studies on the Decartes’ Meditations. My approach for the rest of the summer was to work hard to get myself in a good position athletically heading into what I thought to be my final collegiate season as well as academically heading into crunch-time for philosophy graduate school decision making period. A bright spot in this season was when I hit for the cycle against Andover. Hitting for the cycle, with a wood bat, all filled up with cancer, is something I will hang my hat on looking back on my career.
So as my condition worsened heading into the summer, my friend introduced me to a friend of his, who happens to be a PCP. We went over to his friend’s farm to help him split wood. He checked me out and was willing to see me at his office. As it were, my scheduled scans that happen every 6 months came before I got into his office at Chest Medicine. These scans showed “abnormalities” and demanded a biopsy to be administered. I went in to the biopsy with a gut feeling that my cancer was back. My health had rapidly decreased beyond normalcy. Hell, I even wrote about it (see below); despite this daunting intuition, I was pretty comfortable with the biopsy procedure, having experienced one through my first diagnosis. However, this biopsy was far different from what I remembered.
First off, I figured I’d be receiving partial anesthesia however I only received some morphine which proved not to be enough. I’d go as far as to say that needle being driven into my face was the most physically painful experience of my life. The sensation of them drilling through what felt to be my ear drum/skull was beyond excruciating. The last piercing was the most intense and it got me to budge. I should have known that procedure may have been flawed, but when the biopsy results returned with no cancer cells, so I assumed my pain was a product of some still undiscovered cause, not cancer.
: “-Well, my physical condition seems to be rapidly decreasing. More meds required to keep head pains in check.
Back to that toilet.
With the cords dangling from the top of my right rib cage and that fucking beeping tower thing on wheels sending drips of either poison or poison pusher.
-magnetically malignant motherfuckers are coming, with intensity, I think.
P.S. Please
Just be a figment of my imagination
Dreaming?
Pain so Real”
That’s where I was emotionally going into these tests; and my suspicions were infused but not confirmed as they found “abnormalities” that they didn’t feel was a recurrence. Then with my biopsy, there was great news that there were no cancer cells found. While this was cause for celebration, as we did, foolishly enough in retrospect, it didn’t seem genuine; I was still suffering. As my condition continued to worsen, one could imagine my confusion as a cause of my misery was still unknown.
As doctors continued to try and locate the cause of my pain, pain management specialists and my PCP both became worried, understandably, at the amount of narcotics I was using in order to keep my pain at a tolerable level. Eventually, UPMC got me in for a MRI with contrast, which should have been done a long time ago. As the adult oncologist put it, the MRI made it obvious that my cancer is back. The location of my tumor makes it not operable, and UPMC saw few options for treatment. I sat with the oncologist at Children’s, his incredible PA, and my parents along with a pain management team, and we had a conversation about upkeeping my quality of life through a hospice care plan, not about a treatment plan, as they saw no cure. Oncologist talked about clinical trials to experiment with not with curative intent, but for research to possibly help future patients; they were counting me out.
