Out To Lunch

iStockphoto © Nemanja Pesic

If you have read Leveraging Life since January 2011, you’ll know my one word for 2011 is “pause.”  I can’t help but think some of my readers have begun to think I’m taking the word too literally with my infrequent posting. Contrary to what the photo depicts, out to lunch only symbolizes my being away from Leveraging Life, but it doesn’t come close to telling the story of what my world has looked like the last three or four weeks. 

In addition to running a Subaru dealership, the time I usually reserve for writing and researching the subjects that appear on Leveraging Life has been utilized researching my ever expanding vocabulary. A vocabulary that includes words like lymphadenectomy, lymphedema, pigtail drainage catheters, seromas, and hyperbaric medicine to name a few, and all of which are a byproduct of my battle with merkel cell cancer.

I should stop and say at this point that 2011 started in the best possible way for me and my family with the results of my latest PET scan coming back “all-clear” with no active merkel cell in my body.

The world I’m navigating now is a byproduct of the several surgeries and two rounds of radiation. A world where tissue has been cut and scarred, nuked and burned to eradicate something in me that has the potential to kill me if left unchecked. For the men who are reading, the reason those terms sound familiar is because you might have heard them when you walked with your Wife, Girlfriend, Sister, or Mother in their battle with cancer and the treatment side effects that go with it. For the ladies reading, especially those whose cancer battle included breast cancer, lymphedema, compression garments, and reconstruction surgery are terms all too familiar. For me as the merkel cell spread to my lymph nodes and the Lymphadenectomy was performed the treatment has modeled that of breast cancer minus the chemotherapy. 

I hope by sharing my cancer journey, most everyone will give me a pass if my posts are not as regular as they have been since Leveraging Life’s launch July 2010. In my eyes what is more important is my hope the cancer discussions and the content listed here along with your comments help to educate readers about the treatment and post treatment of cancer.

Ultimately,  the prayer I want to share today is that the information shared only serves to inform and never has to be leveraged either personally or within someone’s family!

~Tom

trusting God period 

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