08/03/2024
Just happened to realize the date today & my brain flashbacked to 5 years ago from this past Wednesday, March 6th, when I shared my own particular cancer story. 5 years later I'm happily, gratefully & luckily still battling & riding this rollercoaster. Sadly in FDNY world at this point more Firefighters have died from 9/11 related diseases than died that fateful day. The shadow of that day still grows.
So as a beautiful sun shines on this 2nd Friday in March, I say thank you once again to my family, friends, guardian angels and the Lord above for the strength & faith to help me keep on fighting. Why I'm here when others are not is an unanswerable mystery. None of us knows what tomorrow brings. This moment, this second, that's the here & now, to embrace & to cherish.
God bless, if anyone's out there reading this, thanks for bearing with me & letting me babble a bit. And to all those confronting & fighting their own challenges &/or disease. Here's a song, a little hope...Take care, happy Friday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPMX1iJF1l8
Post from 5 years and 2 days ago:
"Hello all, it's Ash Wednesday 2019. I just went to Mass & received ashes and thought about what my lenten sacrifice should be this year. However nothing I thought about "giving up" felt quite right. But then as I was kneeling there in church I thought about not 'giving up' something but rather 'giving out & sharing' some thoughts that I've had lately. So here goes...
Few months ago in Oct. 2018 I had a precautionary CT Scan done of my lungs. It came back that my lungs were all clear, but also seen in the scan was that my right kidney had a tumor, basically the whole kidney was one big tumor. And this was discovered accidentally (guardian angels at work, watching over me that day?) I had no symptoms, no pains or discomfort. A week later I was at Sloan Kettering in NYC meeting with their kidney surgeon specialist. The following week my right kidney was gone; Stage 3 cancer. I'm currently undergoing 6 month Immunotherapy treatment program at Sloan Kettering & so far so good. That's the encapsulated story. Surreal to say the least.
So the primary thought here that I want to share is that perhaps anyone out there who was around the WTC site should consider being proactive and going for one of those full body scans. I wasn't, I didn't; over the years I had read & heard about them but having no big overriding health concerns or issues never did it. I underwent annual medicals, blood tests, heart, lungs etc...Nothing over all the years was ever discovered. It took a CT scan where thankfully the tech who administered it happened to include a view of my kidneys. If they hadn't, well my story today could be much different. The doctor at Sloan said that the tumor had probably been growing little by little for years...
The love & support I've received from my family & friends has been amazing. And then being a music geek to the max I assembled my own inspirational "F Cancer" playlist where the music & lyrics, the rhythms & melodies lift & carry me through the dark scary times like when I'm hooked up to an IV in the Sloan treatment room...I plan on sending that playlist out into social media world too, as soon as I get around to typing out around 400 songs & the artists who created them. (I'm slightly music obsessed...)
So to all of you out there who are actually reading this, please if you don't mind can you forward this out to all your people, especially those who were intimately involved with Sept. 11th, the WTC site etc...Doesn't have to be just 1st responders, it's anybody who lived or worked nearby, it's construction workers, it's anybody...so many of us have gotten hit hard by 9/11's shadow that maybe sharing this, maybe it helps someone else and something good comes out of something not so good. So those were my thoughts this particular Ash Wednesday. I share this with you. Thanks for your time, thanks for your attention. Peace..."
