It was 2008 when I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It was a sinking feeling, the idea that I wasn’t even 50 and my life might already be coming to an end. I had a hard time speaking when I tried to tell my brothers and sisters about it. Jill had to finish my words.
This felt like bad luck. Really bad luck. Cancer? Me? I entered a course of radiation: five times a week for about three weeks. It burned. But you know what? It wasn’t that bad. I had a friend who had the same diagnosis around the same time. Jeff got radiation, too. But he also got chemotherapy. And stem cell transplants. Weeks in a hospital isolation room while his decimated immune system rebounded.
