I am writing to you to tell you of my cancer and the fight I mounted against it. I chose to share my story in the hopes that it will inspire as many people as I can whom have been chosen to fight the biggest fight of their lives. Just as the words and prayers of countless people whom I know and did not know in the past 10 months inspired me and gave me strength to fight, to hope, to preserve, and strengthen my faith. This is an experience that allowed me to embrace this disease and the fight against it not as a curse, but as an awakening of my mind and soul on many levels.
For three months prior to being diagnosed with cancer I was fighting an invisible enemy. I had first lost 75% of my combined kidney functions. Following three surgical procedures in two days to stabilize my kidneys and as a result of a morphine overdose in the hospital, my heart stopped for 20 seconds. While in that state, I remember myself at a bottom of a window looking through the shutters. The images through the shutters were changing as rapidly as a regular hearth beat. Boom, boom, boom,… At one point, all images stopped and I found myself in total darkness and accelerating towards a group of stars in the distance. I remember vividly, that during this several seconds, I had one objective only; to return to my wife and three children, my archangels, my life lines. During those moments, I tried to speak, but was amazed at the fact that I never learned to speak. I wanted to let my wife know that I am still here. I could feel my body trying to come back, just as a computer rebooting without success over and over again. Finally, there was total calmness. I began seeing the silhouette of the many people who had come to my help, especially my wife. I was immediately prepared to be taken to the ICU. At that moment, for reasons inexplicable to me, all I wanted to tell my wife was, “Honey, pic-a-boo, I see you!” I was released from the hospital a few days later with two internal kidney stents which have to be replaced every six months for an unforeseen future. I had prepared myself to fight and bring my kidneys back, only to return to the hospital two weeks later with a sever blood clot. For the next several months I was put on blood thinners which ricked havoc with my system from hematological stand point. On March 21 of this year, I finally had my day in the operating room for a biopsy of the bladder and on March 25, on a late Friday afternoon, my wife and I were informed that I have cancer, amazingly to the surprise of my doctor whom had informed me in October of prior year that I have no cancer.