CANCER

This is the original e-mail message I sent out to many of my co-workers, friends, and family about 6/20/05:

Subject: CANCER

Scary word isn't it. It is even more scary when the doctor aims it directly at you (and I hope that will never be the case for any of you).

I have told some of you what is going on with me and I am sure others of you have heard (and some haven't). I wanted to fill in the blanks so to speak as much as possible. I also want to ask all of you for your prayers. I firmly believe prayer makes a difference.

If you don't care for the details, you can stop reading here and know I have been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer. We will not know anything for sure until after I visit the Oncologist at the hospital here in Columbus tomorrow and make a plan. I believe I will be healed of this disease if it is God's will and with His help guiding me and my doctors and with the prayers of me, my friends, and family.

I am going to continue to do my job to the best of my ability until I am not physically able to do so and/or have to be gone for treatment. I beg for your patience as I go through this and promise I will do my best to insure (with the help of my professional colleagues) you continue to receive the same level of radio service you have been used to getting.

Best regards always - Jack
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I am including the following because there may be information here that could be helpful for someone else:

You may have noticed I have walked with a slight to severe limp off and on over the past eleven months. The first doctors I visited with this problem were Orthopedists. I got two opinions a month or so apart. My first symptom was excruciating pain in the area of my left ball joint. I couldn't put much weight on that leg which caused a severe limp. That is the core pain that has come and gone over the eleven month period interspersed with tendonitis in several locations.

Either the x-rays didn't show my problem back then or the doctors didn't notice. If you are having hip pain, most doctors look at your hip joint and if it looks good, don't dig much deeper. They diagnose the problem as tendonitis (which is a complication of a plasmacytoma) and prescribe anti-inflammatory medication. Another clue is high serum protein (protein in the blood) and protein in the urine. If you ever get a physical where your serum protein is in the 11 g/dl range like mine was January 2004, you need to be concerned. I wasn't which I know now was not too smart of me (hind sight is wonderful).

I visited Dr. Gerald Turner (a family practice doctor) at the Lowndes County Medical Center with tendonitis at the origin of my left rectus femoris about three weeks ago (which I had been suffering with for several weeks). He took an x-ray of my hip. He noticed a shadow on the x-ray he didn't like and had me get an MRI done. The first reading of the MRI was similar to those done by the Orthopedists months ago. The doctor looked at the hip joint which was normal and said the MRI was normal. I returned to Dr. Turner about ten days later with pain. This time, the tendonitis was gone but the core pain deep in my hip in the area of the ball joint was back. I told Dr. Turner that unless you know what you are looking for on an MRI, it is like looking for a needle in a hay stack. I also told him I was concerned I might have a disease. He asked for a second opinion on the MRI. The second opinion came back with the discovery of a lesion which was suspicious for neoplastic process, which could be metastic or primary (I just love doctor talk). Dr. Turner called me at home about 7 PM that night and asked me when I wanted to schedule a biopsy. Not IF I wanted to schedule one, WHEN. We had the CT guided needle biopsy done last Tuesday. Friday, Dr Turner called me and told me I had a plasmacytoma in my left ileum which was very likely multiple myeloma.

At first I was in almost total denial. I couldn't be in complete denial because the hip pain kept reminding me something was wrong. I have now accepted that I have a very serious disease that needs treatment as soon as possible. I don't care who knows about it and probably the more people who know the better. There are a lot of emotions that surround something like this. I know people are concerned about me and I just hope and pray I always honor that concern. I sometimes don't show the proper respect for the concern of others so please forgive me if I have offended any of you in the past and I just pray God will give me wisdom to respond in the most appropriate fashion at all times.

Well, that is my story and I am sticking to it. You now know most of the details. The tough part at this point is knowing where to go for the best treatment for my condition. I am going to start at Baptist Memorial but I may wind up at Mayo Clinic or M.D. Anderson or who know where.

Kindest regards - Jack