Monday, May 13, 2013

The Discovery


In September 2010, I began a new journey in my life.  I relatively was a healthy man, 29 years of age and ready to tackle new challenges in life.  Career wise I was making changes, the perspective I had on life was maturing and I felt that the year upcoming was going to be positive.  As a teacher, early into the academic year we had a day off on a Tuesday.  I awoke early that morning to a dull numbing pain in my left leg.  I asked myself, “why does my leg feel so weird?  I rode my exercise bike the night before, but that was common.”  This debilitating pain in my leg was unwarranted.  I decided to go to the emergency room at a nearby hospital.  As I hobbled out of the house I saw my housemate and let him know I was going to the hospital.  I assured him that it was not that serious, I would be fine and I declined a ride there.  I got into my car and drove a few minutes to Doctor’s Community Hospital.

Upon arriving I walked in with a heavy limp as the level of pain increased.  I waited maybe an hour before I made it through the first tier of urgent care.  An hour later I was in the “corral” portion of the emergency room awaiting the techs to draw my blood and test my urine.  The pain began to get pretty bad I could not walk anymore.  I waited on the bench with my feet up taking up precious space from other patients.  Hospital workers finally grabbed my fluids and again I waited in pain.  Later I was moved to a bed.  The longer I lie there the better my leg began to feel.  A nurse came back again wanting more blood.  I was thinking, “Well okay here you go.  Although I am feeling a lot better.”  I sat there on my iPhone playing games and making phone calls.  A few hours later I grew impatient.  My leg felt good. I was ready to leave; this was in fact a day-off and there were a few hours to salvage.  Noon came and went along with the battery life of my cellular phone.  My protests to leave became a little more serious.z

Finally a doctor comes to check on me after being there for more than a quarter of the day.  This doctor was a young African American man.  He carefully walked around my hospital diggs.  He had this look in his eye as if he had been looking at a ghost.  With an uncomfortable hitch in his step he asks how am I doing.  I tell him, “I am feeling much better and ready to go (seeing that they have done nothing to help me feel better).” He glares at me with a certain seriousness and asks the question, “Do you have a family history of cancer?”  I quickly replied, “Nope,” as in saying ‘you have any other questions before you let me go.’  He then exited through the curtain.  Suddenly, I begin to think about his question.  The gravity of his inquiry was settling in.  He came back and explained to me that I would be admitted.  My blood showed a “high toxicity” was present in my body.  Their first guess was that I had leukemia.

I notified my job that I was in the hospital because something was wrong with my leg and I may miss a few days.  Subsequently, I missed a couple of more days of work as the doctors ran tests on my blood, bowels and leg.  Amazingly my leg and bowels were fine, however my blood revealed that I did in fact have leukemia.  My doctor took a sample of my bone marrow and confirmed that I have CML (Chronic Myeloid Leukemia).  I was released from the hospital to follow up with a hematologist and oncologist to handle my condition.  

Friday I returned to work.  Co-workers inquired about the health of my leg.  I reassured them that my leg was fine, but mentioned to very few privately that I have cancer.  I did not want people to see me as “dead man walking.”  I did not hide this from anyone I just kept it to myself.  At least that is what I told myself to quail the uneasiness of the truth.  The outlook in fact was not all that bad.  Many breakthroughs to treat leukemia was available.  

It started out as taking a simple pill daily.  I still hate the idea of taking medicine, but I became more comfortable as I learned about the benefit that this medicine provided.  However, I found out that a bone marrow transplant (BMT) could cure leukemia.  I began to petition my doctor for a BMT reasoning that I did not want to be dependent on medicine.  I began to read about people taking the same drug I was taking and it was prolonging there years greatly.  At that time people were taking the drug Gleevac for over a decade and were still doing fine.  This would not be my testimony.  A little over a year later I had to switch medicines, Gleevac was not working for me anymore.  The new medicine yielded results for a while too, but its effect on my disease was weakening.  They decided to switch to a new medicine.

I got very, very sick.  It became more evident as I missed more and more days at work.  Fevers, back-pain, headaches and common illnesses ruled my days and nights.  I still showed up for work and worked as hard as I could.  One of my students, a nine year old, told me to take the rest of the week off.  That was my last day of work in 2012.  The next day I was hospitalized in blast crisis (that’s like Defcon 1 for CML).  I was on my way to a bone marrow transplant.

My first stay in the hospital went for a week at George Washington University Hospital.  I then went to Johns Hopkins Hospital for three more weeks to undergo chemotherapy.  I went home to do a lot of outpatient hospital visits, counting down to my January 3rd bone marrow transplant.  I was scheduled to be in the hospital at Baltimore for at least three months.  The transplant was tough on my body, but I began to recover.  Unfortunately, my leukemia reared its resilient head once again.  The transplant was unsuccessful, but good news was soon to follow.

A new drug became available, hot of the presses (or from FDA approval).  I was taking my fourth anti-leukemia med and this time it worked.  All of my check-ups checked-out and I was on the road to recovery!  In late March 2013 I even returned back to work.  I like working.  I felt a certain redemption starting to work again; like a  phoenix arising from its ashes.  My return was short-lived.  The medicine began to slow down its effectiveness again.  My doctor insisted that I return back to the hospital for four to five weeks to gain control over the cancer. 

Where am I now?  In the hospital for four to five weeks.  After this I will attempt another transplant.  In the past year I have been through a lot.  As I endure this trial in life, I take a step back and look at all the good things that have happened.  So many people have been there with me through it all.  In a way this has been like, “Nick Okunubi, This is Your Life!”  I want to thank everyone for their support and to ask for your prayers.  At first, I did not want people to know about my illness.  Now I recognize that in a way I was being selfish and prideful.  God is allowing all of this to happen for a reason (Romans 8:28-29).  This experience has been an amazing roller-coaster ride and I want to share a measure of it with you on this blog. 

Monday, December 17, 2012

In the Night

Have you ever been awaken in the middle of the night, not knowing the reason?  Suddenly you are seized from your sleep waking to a clear mind.  I mean really clear.  My first thoughts are, "Why am I awake?  Is there something that I neglected to do?"  I search through my mind trying to make the right decisions.  A few moments are spent doing this and doing that to remedy the perceived reason I was awaken from my sleep.  I think to myself, "It is waaaaay before dawn, I should still be sleep.  I have done what I was supposed to do.  Now I am supposed to be sleep."  Why am I still awake?  Tonight it was to send an e-mail, take some medicine.  But what about the subsequent three hours that follow?  What am I to do with that time?  I pray.  I ask God.  I wait.  I listen.  I wait.  I wait.  I write my first real entry to my blog.  Redeeming the time?  Ahhhhh, maybe.  Sometimes I believe I wake up to hear God's voice.  The day plays back like slides on an old-school projector.  I ask for forgiveness.  I think about the people in my life.  I pray.  Tonight I write, trying to figure out where my life is going.  I am not worried or scared, just wondering.  I think about scripture that keeps my heart at times of confusion or fear.  When I view my proverbial compass and the bar needle moves circuitously around North, East, South and West over and over again.  Spinning rapidly around the dial.   Although I might feel lost, forgotten, maybe even despondent.  I like to read Psalm 139.  In particular I like to look at verse 12:
Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,
​​But the night shines as the day;
​​The darkness and the light are both alike to You.
Psalm 139:12

I am reminded that God knows me perfectly, even if I do not.  My future, my past and even my present.  Although I grope with thoughts, emotions and physical discomforts in the night, I know that with God there is no darkness, but solely light.  He is the Father of lights.  And every good and perfect gift comes from Him.  Tonight that gift is sleep for me as I feel the drowsiness beginning to set in.  I hope that a gift for you could be this post.


Monday, December 10, 2012



On a new journey.  I am wondering what will happen next.