From Esquire‘s Tom Junod and Mark Warren, a tale about fighting cancer, being brave because there’s no other choice, and the dubious honor of having a fly created in your genetic image:
On May 7 of this year, I received a Facebook message from a woman named Stephanie Lee:
Hey Mark, I found that I have colon cancer today. I go for surgery Thursday morning. Please keep me in your prayers.
At the time, Stephanie was thirty-six and lived on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, in the town of Ocean Springs. I had met her eight years before, when I worked with Tom Junod on a story for Esquire (“Mississippi Goddamn,” November 2005) about how Hurricane Katrina had affected military families already enduring the calamities of the war in Iraq—the families whose suffering had been doubled by the wind and the rain and the floods. Junod and I met Stephanie at her grandmother’s house in Lucedale, Mississippi, where she told her story. She was a small woman who worked as a pipe fitter at the Northrop Grumman shipyard, a fine-boned beauty with an intimidating reserve of tensile strength, a single mother whose face settled easily into stoicism and whose eyes lit up with challenge and dare. She’d spent most of her life bedeviled by inconstant men until she met Terrance Lee where she worked. He was a welder. He was younger than Stephanie, and quiet, but she thought he was like her in that he had a plan for making something of himself. Like her, he’d joined the Mississippi National Guard. They married and she e-mailed with him every night after he was called to Iraq in January 2005. She was seven months pregnant when his Humvee went over an IED. She was nine months pregnant when Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, and she got in her truck with her husband’s .45 and drove nearly eight hours on snarled roads to Shreveport to find a generator so that her baby—Terrance’s baby—wouldn’t have to be born in darkness. Three days later, she gave birth to Marchelle, who never stopped reminding Stephanie both of her life with Terrance and of the impossibility of life without him…
A week later came another. I am well. The surgery went great, just waiting for the biopsy to find out if the cancer spread to my lymphoid. I’m sore and tired and feel so helpless right now, but I know it will get better.
A week after that: I have to have chemo, Mark. Keep me in your prayers.
Stephanie was not alone. She had her seventeen-year-old daughter, Kamri, a student at the local high school, and she had Marchelle. She had friends and an aunt with whom she was close. Thanks to Terrance, she also had health insurance. Thanks to Terrance, she was able to walk into the Keesler Air Force Base Medical Center in Biloxi and receive treatment for a cost no greater than the utterance of a number. It was the last four digits of Terrance’s Social Security number, and now it was her number, for her war. She had stage-three colon cancer. Following the surgery to remove the tumor from her colon, her oncologist wanted to treat her as aggressively as possible—six months of a combination of toxic chemicals known as FOLFOX6, administered every two weeks through a port installed between her left breast and her collarbone. The port was implanted under her skin on June 10, a week before her chemotherapy was set to start. It was supposed to be minor surgery, but two days later Stephanie woke up in such agony that there was fear that perhaps the surgeon who had installed the port had accidentally perforated her chest wall. He hadn’t, but the news was even worse. She went to Keesler for a CT scan, and after she was done, she was waiting in the ER and an attending physician walked into the room. She said, “You know it’s in your liver, right?”…
Aji
Christ.
I spent the day feeling sorry for myself for having to cope with a ton of stuff while dealing with a septic-tank mainline that had been frozen since 2PM yesterday. Okay, so life was inconvenient today. But jesus, I’m spoiled.
Perspective. I needz it occasionally.
Villago Delenda Est
There is no justice in this universe.
This woman suffers and Dick Cheney still lives.
Aji
@Villago Delenda Est: I gave up on justice a long time ago. The fact that that one – and the rest of his crew – remain not only alive but out roaming the streets to the great peril of the rest of us is merely proof positive.
SiubhanDuinne
@Villago Delenda Est:
This woman’s karma will run over Dick Cheney’s dogma.
Suzanne
God. That story and that woman are amazing.
BethanyAnne
Hey, could we get a Black Friday thread for artists and folk that sell their stuff to post a link? Sort of a Balloon Juice Black Friday?
dopey-o
when you publish an excerpt like that, i know you think it’s “fair use,” but there’s nothing fair about her situation. the arc of the universe does not bend toward fairness. it seems to bend little people down and grind them into dust until there is nothing left, except the occassional vein of pure gold of character. i’m sorry that her husband doesn’t get to spend years and years in the company of such a woman as Stephanie.
it seems obscene to mention Iraq and the former vice president in the context of such pure beauty.
Violet
That’s an amazing story. Thanks for posting it. If anyone missed it, at the end there’s a link to donate to help support her daughters who are her caregivers, and to donate towards their education. The Stephanie Lee Fund.
Litlebritdiftrnt
Speaking of the ACA and all such things, I pondered on Mark Halperin’s ridiculous “death panels” bullshit the other day. My Mum, who lives in England as you all know, had a stent replacement just this year. She turned 80 in November. If anyone is rationing treatment under the NHS certainly no one has told my Mum about it. The only reason that there will be rationing in the US is because they will not allow more Doctors to graduate medical school, and the reason they won’t allow more Doctors to graduate medical school is to ensure a shortage of Doctors so that the Doctors can charge what the fuck they want and get paid whatever they want. As I have told you before, back in 1998 we were working on a case, a Anesthesiologist was suing the hospital where he was employed for some such thing. He was being paid $33,000.00 A MONTH. Who the fuck needs to be paid a month what most people earn in a year!
geg6
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yes. Proof that the god of the Christians cannot possibly exist. The god of the Jews, maybe. Because that god was a majorly sociopathic prick.
The Bobs
Dealing with this myself right now. Now it has spread to my lower spine, where it isn’t doing much yet but hurting a lot. Stage 4, there isn’t much they can do.
I do a LOT of meditation, which has been more effective than even morphine for the pain. I hope the meditation can do even more, as is the only chance I have now. I’m one heck of a powerful meditator, I have an effect on anyone else who is in the room with me. I won’t let them keep cutting on me until there is nothing left, that is just more pain.
I used to post on here pretty often, but not so much since this happened. Still read BJ every day. A great group of people.
geg6
@The Bobs:
Wow, you’re really going through a tough fight. I’ll be keeping you in my thoughts.
Anne Laurie
@The Bobs: Oh dear. You will be in my animist prayers, FWIW.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Bobs: Like others here, I don’t pray in any accepted sense of the word — but I will keep you in my heart and thoughts. I’m glad you have powerful meditation chops, and hope your skills keep the pain at bay.
Gentle but sincere {{{hugs}}} to you.
JPL
@The Bobs: My brother has stage four cancer and yesterday the sons and a son’s significant other were able to bring Thanksgiving to him and his family. It was a special Thanksgiving because we spent it together. I’m glad that you are meditating. Your story and my brother’s reminds us to live until the day we die.
Thank you for sharing.
MazeDancer
@The Bobs:
Meditation is miraculous. Even a few minutes a day somehow changes the brain. No one knows how this is so, but it really does. Even people who do it haphazardly and for just five minutes at a time, if they keep doing it every day, feel results. So a power worker like you can truly create peace inside yourself. Your spirit can sparkle. The body will benefit.
Sending you many healing thoughts.
Gin & Tonic
@Litlebritdiftrnt: There are, as I’m sure you know, good and decent doctors who make a living commensurate with their investment in their training and skills, yet not “excessive.” Anesthesiologists are among the most frequently-sued specialists, so how about some of your bile directed at the blood-sucking plaintiff’s bar, which helps drive insurance rates up to the point where an individual practitioner’s annual premium also far exceeds the median annual wage? Or does that cut too close to the paycheck?
Bo Alawine
OMG! I live in Ocean Springs and I work at that shipyard.
I never had heard of her story!
I passed this info along to the local righwingnutjob talk radio station (I call in to the show in the morning sometimes to rile the natives) and to one of the reporters for the local mullet wrapper (The Sun Herald).
I knew there was a reason I read this blog, other than to see Cole raise hell about his animals.
JoyfulA
@The Bobs: My mother-in-law had stage 4 colorectal cancer and was told that because it had spread to a distant area, she had less than a 5% chance to live. Then she began the stressful treatments, armed only with a pretty but realistic new wig.
I started thinking about the situation. The cancer was said to have spread to her ovaries, and she had a total hysterectomy. But ovaries aren’t to my mind a distant area from a colon, not like a brain or a foot or even a breast. I convinced myself that she had a fighting chance to recover, and then I convinced her. She climbed out of resignation and sorrow, and she prayed. She prayed a lot, and kept getting all those treatments.
She did recover, and she didn’t even lose her hair. The story isn’t all sunshine, though. The treatments led to her getting non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma 10 years later, which is supposedly common for the strength of treatments she had. But 10 years of very good health was a wonderful gift.
I guess the moral of my story is to always keep hope alive. I try, even when I have to rationalize that an ovary is a lot closer to a colon than a thumb.
Aji
@The Bobs: Dear god. Seconding what Anne Laurie said. Not the same tradition, obviously, but some similarities.
Do you have any herbal or other options to help ameliorate the effects?
Violet
@The Bobs: Sending good thoughts. Meditation is a wonderful thing. I’m glad it’s helpful for you.
Have you read Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani? Sounds like it might be of interest to you, given your other areas of interest. She’s got a website with more info too.
Jasmine Bleach
@The Bobs:
Not sure about your situation, or what you’ve already had done, but just on the off chance you would qualify, there are Phase II clinical trials going on for two drugs for metastatic colorectal cancer–Anti-HER3/EGFR DAF and Parsatuzumab (Anti-EGFL7). Both are monoclonal antibodies (the first one is a dual-actor and actually attacks two things in bodies that might contribute to cancer growth).
If interested, go here and scroll down to the drug names–there are links to clinical trial information and locations.
Big caveats . . . although both have passed through Phase I trials (showing they are relatively safe to give to people), they are still in the midst of Phase II trials, so they haven’t necessarily been shown to be effective at treatment. Also, clinical trial entrance can be quite strict, and a lot of stuff could potentially disqualify you. But still, probably worth a look.
Sending good thoughts your way . . .
Jasmine Bleach
Additional note: Just the first drug I listed has Clinical Trials that are actively recruiting for colorectal cancer. The second one has active ongoing trials, but they don’t seem to be accepting more people at this time.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@The Bobs: You have my very best thoughts and healing energy focused in your direction.
Fuzzy
My son at age 44 has been given 2 years after his latest screen. It spread from bladder to spine to lymphoids . This all started in his kidney 7 years ago and we thought it was over when that was removed. Radiation and bags of poison do horrible damage to your whole body and they give you as much as you can stand and still live. Cancer is a vicious prick but at least he has a chance to put his feet in warm water and white sand for while.
Goblue72
Because we recognize the gift of life – and the ever presence of our own mortality – thus are we progressives, liberals, lefties and socialists. We fight because life is frail – and everyone deserves their happiness for the brief moment we have.
fuckwit
@geg6: Well, the god of the fundamentalist christians here IS the god of the ancient Jews– the Old Testament god.
The more I think about humanity, I realize what a disaster white people have been for the whole world. Just making a huge mess of everything. Violent, selfish, nasty, and on MASSIVE scales. Yeah, humans of all races and all over the planet can be and have been violent, selfish, and nasty, but white people seem to have mastered the art of applying technology to “scaling” that viciousness and selfishness and nastiness, dating back to the Sumerians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Spanish, French, British, Germans, and now us.
Birthmarker
Love and prayers, Bobs.
Great read, Anne. Enjoyed.
trollhattan
@The Bobs:
Please accept my heartfelt thoughts and best wishes.
Linkmeister
I saw this link last night and clicked on it. I neglected to come back and say thanks for doing so. It’s a fascinating, heart-breaking story, and I’m glad you posted a link.
trollhattan
Now that I’ve had time to read the article and follow-up, it’s a heartwrenching tale. Perhaps more poignant is that Stephanie Lee has responded to several of the comments on both. Exceptional lady doesn’t begin to describe her, toting a Job’s burden with more dignity than I’ve scratched together in a lifetime.
Ilya
@Litlebritdiftrnt: I’m a doctor and I make nothing near that much, but I’m sure you’re story is $100% true and not at all an exaggeration made by someone to demonize doctors.
There are plenty of dumb people in med school, if you want to let more in the way law school and pharmacy school and pretty much every other professional school has done only to result in lowered quality of the profession and higher margins for their employers, go ahead. I’m not worried, my income is safe, but I would be worried for my patients.