After the x-rays the doctor came and said " Yeah, it looks like you got cancer. There is an eleven inch mass in your throat and chest." I couldn’t believe it. I said,"you are joking right?" but he wasn’t. My wife was visibly shaken and I was still in denial when he started rattling off specialists that I needed to see. It was like a kick in the nuts.
This article isn’t about the nuts and bolts of having Cancer. It’s about the effects that getting the news can have on you and what to watch out for should you get through it. I was reeling, after all I had been through in my life and the fact that I just started a family, it seemed so unfair, and ridiculous, like I was the butt of some terrible joke by God. I lay in bed that night yelling at the heavens to spare me this and to spare my family this, but there was no getting around it, this would have to be handled. I began building a swing set so my children would have something other than a stack of bills to remember me by.
I am trying to go into business making these. Check out the web site at
After we settled on a group of specialists, which was no easy task, but I eventually got funneled to the right people, the lump in my throat was so big that one of the doctors told me that what had been diagnosed as cancer was really just a goiter, then he started showing me pictures of people in Africa with goiter. I had been to Africa and seen some people with goiter for myself so we were relieved. He said he would do surgery to remove it but there were some risks. Like I might loose my voice because he had to open my throat to get at it.
I awoke in the intensive care unit after surgery, still very groggy and the doctor said to me, "congratulations you do have cancer." He went on to explain that they had indeed opened me up and realized right away that it was not a goiter but that it was in fact a very large and substantial bit of cancer. I asked if he had gone ahead and removed it but he hadn’t. Turns out that the cancer was so involved with my carotid arteries and my aorta that surgery was just not an option. I was looking at intensive chemotherapy and a lot of it. The good news being the congrats was that it was a readily treated type of cancer. Non-Hodgkin’s large B cell lymphoma. I think that is when it really sank in and the depression took hold. The first thing to watch out for is depression.
I had never thought of myself as a person who would be susceptible to something as moody as depression. I had lived more in my years than most do in a life time. I was right where I wanted to be, a lovely and loving wife, beautiful healthy children, everything a man could want. But this cancer thing had come from nowhere and without realizing it I became sullen and unpredictable. my moods would flash from way up to way down or very angry. I essence I became a different person, no more joy in my life, no more happiness. It was hardest on my wife, I couldn’t see the forest for the trees and she had to bear the brunt of it. If I had to do it over again I would have sought help from multiple sources right away but I did nothing. By the time I did begin to realize that I wasn’t the same person I had done irreparable damage to our relationship.
After six months of chemotherapy I was in remission with a new outlook on life, so I thought, but my depression stayed with me. It was only then that I sought out some help from my oncologist with my mood. He prescribed some Prozac which I thought would be enough, but it wasn’t. My ability to maintain my relationship with my wife continued to suffer even though she was begging me to get more help. Eventually I pushed her so far away that there was no going back. She remains to this day a positive influence in my life and the person responsible for saving it but the damage I caused was just to great to be forgotten. Only now years later am I just beginning to get a handle on my emotional well being but I am a changed man, less of a man.
I write this article as warning to anyone else who may be going through a similar ordeal. If you find out that you have cancer you must take care of your mental health while you battle your physical ailment. You can not ignore the warnings signs of depression. Pay attention to things like mood swings and lack of joy or satisfaction in the things you used to love. You must be proactive in treating your mental well being as well as your physical well being. Ask your doctors to recommend a therapist and have a pharmacological plan of attack. These are as important as your cancer treatments. After all, why work so hard to stay alive if the things you hold so dear slip away because you become intolerable. I owe my wife everything but all I can give her now is relief from my presence. That is a much more bitter pill to swallow than the depression medication that I refused to accept that I needed.
I am now working hard to get my life back together and I can tell you first hand that putting my mental state of mind back together has been a much longer and more difficult road than beating the cancer. The doctor was right, six months of chemo and it was gone, but my mental state has persisted for years. I can only hope now that I am able to come to a peaceful state of existence so that I can be happy again but, after all this time, I am only now beginning to feel that this may be possible. Do not make the mistakes I have made I implore you, talk to your oncologist right away about depression and chemical changes to your body, whether you think you are affected or not. It is better to be safe than sorry, you do not want to suffer from depression if you don’t have to.
Creighton Smith
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