“Cancer Free” — The Best Feeling in the World
Sampson is a Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma survivor. This is his cancer story.
2013 was supposed to be the year that I finally made an impact. I was in a new stage in my life. I was almost one year through my divorce, my son had just turned a year old and I was in a new spot with my job. I was finally moving on with my life, and I thought that things were finally on the up and up for me. This all changed when I was diagnosed with Large B- Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma in March of 2013. I was already a patient at MD Anderson Cancer Center because I have previously had a few brain tumors and I had been operated on there.
Well in January 2013, I noticed several bumps growing on my scalp and they progressively got larger and larger. I made an appointment with my plastic surgeon at MD Anderson, who told me he could fix me up, and I would be back to normal in no time. I had the surgery on March 5th, 2013 and I thought I was good to go, but the next day the plastic surgeon came to my room and told me that while the surgery had been a success, the biopsy revealed that I had Stage 4 Diffuse Large B Cell Non Hodgkin Lymphoma.
I was going to turn 29 on March 7th and I remember the doctor saying “this is a crappy way to celebrate your upcoming birthday.” When I was told the results of the biopsy I struggled to believe it. It wasn’t until the next day when an oncologist, Dr. Westin, broke it down for me and told me that I needed to start the process to treat this disease quickly, and that he wanted to go full force to get rid of it. I remember him saying that, with this type of cancer, there was an 85% survival rate and he felt positive about my future. After talking to him, I quickly realized how serious this was. He told me that the cancer was stage 4, and that the sooner I started chemotherapy, the better.
While I was in the hospital recovering from my surgery, I had a lot of excruciating back pain and I couldn’t move. I was not able to lay in the hospital bed, because I would cry of so much pain. On March 12th I had an MRI on my spine. The results revealed a tumor the size of an apple in my spinal cord. March 20th I had the tumor removed. The surgeon informed me that if I had waited more than 3 days without surgery I would have been in a wheel chair for the rest of my life.
All I could think of during this time was “wow, my son just turned a year old and he’s going to grow up without his father.” I kept thinking, “is there enough life insurance for him?” “What happens now with work?”, “Am I going to die in my twenties?” A plethora of other thoughts crossed my mind and all I could do is dwell and dwell and dwell. I remember having to do a bone marrow aspiration procedure on April 10th, and that was the true reality of me getting treatment. After the bone marrow treatment, I knew that I had to beat this disease and I needed to live for my son. I would not allow him to grow up without a father, and I didn’t want my ex-wife to struggle raising our son by herself.
All in all, I completed six cycles of intensive chemotherapy (R-EPOCH). It was tough. I would have to do a week’s worth of chemotherapy every 18 days, and for that week I had to carry a backpack with six tubes pumping intensive chemotherapy drugs in to me. During those treatment weeks, I had to report to MD Anderson every 24 hours and get a new backpack of the chemotherapy drugs. This phase was exhausting, draining and taxing on my body. Not only was I dealing with the R-EPOCH chemotherapy, but I also had to get an epidural chemotherapy shot in my back. Dr. Westin did not want to take any chances with my spinal cord having cancer. This was a precaution.
I started chemotherapy on April 18th and I completed chemotherapy on August 3rd, 2013. September 9th was my first PET scan and the next day Dr. Westin told me that I was free of cancer lights. I remember him saying, “I will not say you are completely cancer free until 2 years.” As of 2016, Dr. Westin has finally said, “you are completely cancer free”, and this is one of the best feelings in the world.
