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.
