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HODGKIN'S
DISEASE
IT'S
NOT JUST ANOTHER MIRACLE
BY
MATT BROOKS
Call it luck. Call it good
fortune. Call it whatever you want, but don't call it
just another miracle. This is not just another miracle.
This is THE miracle. It is MY miracle.
Late in December 2005 I went
into the doctor for a cough I had since the Thanksgiving
before. I had lost about 10 pounds, and was looking
good. I attributed the weight loss to the extra efforts
in the gym. Weighing in at 175 pounds at six feet tall,
I felt pretty good about myself. Except for the
mysterious cough.
Preliminary test showed
that I might have had a case of "walking pneumonia"
which I took antibiotics for for the next 2 weeks. I
felt better overall, but I still had a cough that was
getting worse. I was working out three or four times a
week, and starting to feel more and more out of
shape as the weeks progressed, so I went back to the
doctor for a second round of antibiotics.
That's when I started having a
pain in my chest. I researched on the internet for a
possible reason, and I concluded I had strained or
cracked a rib with what was now a violent cough. I went
in for another x-ray to see what the problem was, and my
doctor did not like what he saw.
I had a very large
cloudy area covering my entire left lung. He sent me in
for a closer look via CAT scan and that's when they
found it. A 22cm tumor about one and a half centimetres
in diameter. It was growing between the lobes of
my left lung, closing it shut at it grew larger. It had
also been wrapped around my major arteries. The
restricted blood flow and decreased lung capacity was
why I was getting tired all the time and loosing sleep.
I went in the first week of
January for a biopsy to see what this mass was. I waited
a week and a half, and no results. Days seemed to crawl
by as I eagerly waited by the phone, but nothing
happened. Finally, my doctor calls me and asks me to
come into the office.
We sat down and he plainly told
me that the sample they took was not being identified by
any of the test they were running on it. The tumor is
growing so aggressively now, that if we don't start
treatment very soon, then there won't be any stopping
it. My heart sank into despair at those words, and I
couldn't understand how this could happen to an
athletic, healthy 24 year old. How on earth can this
happen to me of all people?
My wife an
I frantically called everyone we could call to get as
many opinions on the sample as possible. We sent it all
over the country, and finally the doctors at Emory
University discovered I had a large B Cell Non-Hodgkin's
Lymphoma tumor. Very rare for someone my age, they told
me. That afternoon I started the LONG journey of
chemotherapy. I endured eight months of treatment,
getting IV injections through a chemo port every three
weeks. The treatments got harder and harder as my blood
counts weakened. My white cell count dropped and stayed
below 200 for weeks, and I got infection after infection
because of it. I was becoming very anaemic and even my
haemoglobin was way down. Instead of postponing
treatment, my doctor urged me to continue as to not let
the tumor have a chance to rebound.
I hated the thought of
food. I couldn't eat or sleep for what seemed
like days at a time. I was exhausted yet wired from the
large does of steroids I was getting. I counted down the
days until I was finished, and they never went by fast
enough.
Luckily, I had stage 3 Lymphoma,
which had miraculously not metastasized yet. The tumor
shrank over the course of the eight months after the
chemo and radiation therapy. I started gaining my weight
back, and I started to enjoy eating again. Things were
turning around finally.
There are few things that can
motivate someone to endure the worst, to endure
something that destroys your body in an effort to repair
it. Life seems to do the same thing to us. Trouble,
stress, illness, and hard times all wear us down. The
important thing is to not give in to them and stand your
ground. Stand Firm. Stand on whatever you have. For
some, it may be friends, or family or hope or whatever.
For me it was faith. I knew that
whatever the outcome, it was right. What made sense to
me was not what was important. I trusted that my faith
would heal me, or get me through to heaven on the other
side. Therefore, I gave up being the victim. I gave up
focusing on the negative in life. I realized that a
vision and a dream carry you further than doubts and
reasons.
You get one chance at
life. You only get one opportunity to make it great.
Take the promise and claim it as your own; have life and
have it to the full. My dream has always been to work
with cars, and to build a career out of my hobby. In
2007 I founded a company to help me do just that. I have
been given a second chance, and I intend to make
the most of it. Keep a positive faithful attitude, and a
positive faithful life is sure to follow.
Majestic Modifications is the
complete car customization concept, specializing in
auto
accessories, cold air intakes and
performance upgrades,
body
kits, and exterior accessories, glow
gauges and interior accessories, wheels and tires,
mobile video, car audio and electronics.
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