A child with cancer My name is Jim. I live in Central Missouri. I'm married, with an eight-year-old daughter. I'm 53 years old. When I was 7 years old back in Chester, Pennsylvania, it was in the spring of 1954, one of the neighborhood kids ran into my leg with a wagon and it was a bad bruise. About a month later, the weather had warmed up to where we were wearing shorts, and my parents noticed that my leg was quite swollen, my lower right leg. And so they took me to the doctor and he immediately sent me for an x-ray. He showed up at our house that night. I was sent into the kitchen and I heard my parents very upset and agitated out there. What transpired was that they had diagnosed that I had bone cancer in my lower right leg. They called it osteogenic sarcoma, in those days, I guess. Early treatment and persistence is important I was immediately taken to this bone specialist, Dr. Jones, and he wanted to try an experimental surgery on me. I got like 60 stitches down the outside of my right leg. I wasn't sure what they did then, but I think what he had done basically was operate on my leg bone to try to remove the cancerous cells. Then I was taken to x-ray therapy for a year. For about six months I went every day. They called it cobalt therapy, then, and it was a treatment where they were trying to burn the cancer cells out of my leg. In this process I met another little boy, the same age as me, and he had it higher up, just below his knee. He subsequently had three amputations and he finally died from it. I guess I was the lucky one and it seemed to cure my cancer. I'm here now, 53 years old, thinking 47 years ago this happened, and I feel very fortunate. Support of my family and community helped me through It was a very expensive procedure and we weren't a very wealthy family, so a lot of various sports teams in Philadelphia, including the Philadelphia Eagles, played an exhibition game. They paid pretty much all of my medical expenses. I guess my parents probably treated me a little differently because of that and I made a full recovery. Whereas my leg is still atrophied from the therapy it kind of stunted the growth of it, so it's thinner. My oldest daughter calls me "Little Leg Man". And we kind of joke about it. I'm a musician, and I wrote and produced a jingle for the Eagles, "Fly for Leukemia for Childhood Leukemia". I gave them the jingle and they've raised quite a sum of money and that, for me, was one of the highlights of my life, being able to return the favor for them. Everything is going well now. I play in a band with seven other guys here in central Missouri. I'm just enjoying life and my family, and everything is good. Never give up hope You can never give up. I mean I didn't really have all the information when I was that age to fight it, but now I have gone through the experience and I know more about the problems with bone cancer. It's a pretty grim diagnosis usually, but I didn't give up and I've met other people who have survived go on to lead productive lives. You should never give up, that's all. It's never hopeless, I don't think. I think if you get in that state of mind you don't help yourself very much. Stay positive and I think you can overcome certain aspects of it. Just through positive thinking. Think positive I always feel I'm a pretty lucky person here you know to do this because I was like the first or second person in the text books to survive this in the early fifties. And the doctors always used to want to see it and talk about it and everything. I always felt that made me a more interesting person, or something. I just think it gives me a more positive aspect on life in general. Just going through that. My message to you Never give up hope. Because there's other factors involved in this besides just the doctors, I think. I think your outlook and your spirituality and whatever it is you can use to keep a positive mental outlook is really impornt. Just as important as the medical treatment, I think. I don't want to get too mystical but I think it's there, and I think it's very important. d |
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