What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

Yesterday, I had an appointment with the doctor (Dr. Uro in my book) who discovered my melanoma. I still remember his shaky voice as it came over my phone's speaker. He said the word, and neither Elvira and I could believe it. We asked him to repeat it. He did, and still it didn't register. The third time he pronounced each syllable slowly and distinctly, "Mel-a-nom-a".

It has been a little more than a year since I saw Dr. Uro. He smiled broadly when he walked into the exam room and shook my hand. He has been going through treatment for prostate cancer himself, and we talked briefly about our experiences. After his exam, which revealed no surprises, he reviewed my case on the computer for a few moments before taking a deep breath and saying, "You are a lucky man." I agreed with him wholeheartedly. He made an appointment for me a year from now.

"You will be here," he said optimistically.

"So will you," I replied.

We discovered over the past two weeks that several other friends have also received a cancer diagnosis. For all of them and Dr. Uro, we send our best wishes.

As for my treatment, everything went well. I am now scheduled for an MRI on June 8 and a PET scan on June 12. My appointment to learn the results of those tests is June 14.

As Andy Dufresne says in the Shawshank Redemption, "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things."