Speeches

The Wedding and The Funeral:

A dear friend of mine, Alese Coco, fought Hodgkin’s Disease for 5 ½ years through 3 occurrences.  She was faithful to Christ and every day strove to help others with Hodgkin’s.  She and her family dedicated themselves to that mission.  Alese was a stunningly pretty blonde haired 23 year old blessing to those who knew her.  She died last Monday from complications arising from treating the Hodgkin’s Disease.  Her funeral was held on May 12, 2007 in Torrance, California.  My heart is devastated. 

A dear friend of mine, Lydia N., has dedicated her life to God’s service and will be a linguist and translator in Africa, bringing God’s word to the people of Tanzania.  She and her family dedicate themselves to helping others.  Lydia is a stunningly pretty blonde haired 25 year old blessing to those who know her.  For a long time she was unsure that she would ever marry.  I encouraged her to find the right person.  Ultimately, she found a young man who shared her passion for ministry and mission.  She was married on May 12, 2007 in Hamilton, Ohio.  My heart is overjoyed.

Which should I attend?  The Wedding or The Funeral?

Both families will be surrounded by those who love them.  Both young women share my faith and have dedicated themselves to service.  Both are dear to me.  Each ceremony marks a time that will never come again. Never again.

The Wedding or The Funeral?

Time is fleeting.  Its gifts are sacred.  It holds chances that fade like flowers for each Alese and Lydia.

Out of love for both…

I celebrated the Wedding.

Be Blessed, Lydia.
Be Blessed, Alese.

Personal History:

On a hot summer day in North Carolina when I was 12 years old.  I got out of the pool and ran over to my mother who sat in a grove of sycamore trees with my aunt and grandparents.  She touched my neck and noticed a swollen gland under my left jaw.  It was probably 3-4 cm long.  She believed it was swimmer’s ear.  But the swelling never went down.

So, we sought medical attention.  We went to various pediatricians who thought it might be a cyst.  We went to an allergist who stuck my back and arms with more than a hundred allergen filled pinpricks to see if the growth was a reaction to any allergies that I might have (By the way, I’m slightly allergic to dogs, cats and pine trees.)  We went to an Ear-Nose-Throat specialist, who thought that there might be something undesignated amiss.  I even went to a chiropractor for several months who tried to treat the growth with gel and ultrasound.  For 2 ½ years we went to doctors.  Never once was it suggested that the ever growing mass might be cancer.  By the time I was 14, the mass had grown to 8 cm x 6 cm x 3 cm.  I finally asked mom if it could be removed, for aesthetic reasons.  She agreed.

So, I went in for surgery.  I had a 6 inch incision on my neck.  As soon as the surgeon laid eyes on the mass, he knew that it was a lymphoma.  The story goes that he began swearing in the operating room.

Doctors Patterson and Kimball came in to see me after a couple of days of recovery in the hospital.  I’d never heard of oncologists before.  I was there and my parents were there.  They very gravely told us that I had cancer, Hodgkin’s Disease.  I wasn’t shocked.  I already suspected cancer, given the concern with which they were treating me.  This was 1981.  I never cried about having cancer.  I still never have.

I was in stage IIIA.  Tumors above and below the diaphragm.  My medical reports indicate that my prognosis was “Poor.” 

I can tell you that there has been substantial progress in treatment for cancer over the course of the last 25 years.  As a teen, I was treated with Adriamycin, Procarbazine, Vencristine, Cytoxan, and Prednisone.  In those days, there was no such thing as anti-nausea medicine.  So, you bore the full brunt of the chemotherapy.  The gene therapy and anti-body treatment research that is going on right now, intended to substitute for chemotherapy is quite remarkable.  Of course, I lost my hair.  And that is not easy when you are 14.

In those days, there was no such thing as a CT scan.  If the doctors wanted to see inside of you, they cut your abdomen open and looked around.  So, I had what they called a staging laparotomy.  There is a 12 inch incision on my stomach, they removed the spleen to see if it was implicated.  Of course, they can’t put it back, because it bleeds.  They also removed my appendix.  There is a 5 inch incision on my left hip where they cut me and chipped my hip to take bone marrow.  I also had what I think is called a lymphangiogram, where the doctors cut 1 inch incisions in the tops of my feet and put needles into my lymph system to pump a purple radioactive dye.  The pump looked like a small, black, old fashioned sewing machine.  In modern treatment, they would just run me through a CT to get the information, more information, in fact, than they got from that process.

In the semi-conscious, half out of my head days following my abdominal surgery, I refused pain medication.  My blood pressure was through the roof.  My mother, bless her heart, allowed me to make the decision regarding pain meds.  I’m grateful for that.  I was responsible for my decisions.  Even at 14.  It cost me, but it taught me.  Finally, I consented to taking the medications and my blood pressure returned to normal.  I rested easier.  By the way, I encourage taking the pain medication.

All of my chemotherapies were given via push rather than drip.  I remember the red adriamycin.  It must have been mixed with another chemotherapy, because it was 200 ml.  It is refrigerated and cold.  It’s not a natural substance.    When it is pushed into your system, you feel it go straight to your heart.  It does not carry oxygen.  Your heart pumps this chemical through to your system.  It’s as close to a moment of death as you ever want to consciously go.

I will tell you though, I am blessed.

After a year, I went into remission.

For the next 24 years, I lived life.  I was diligent about going in for annual reviews for the first three years or so, but then met with my doctors less and less.

Accomplishments

I graduated from High School, played sports, joined the Navy, Graduated with Honors from the Defense Language Institute, visited 50 countries, circumnavigated the globe 4 times, spent four tours in the Persian gulf escorting tankers, fought in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, underwent 2 separate missile attacks, worked at the National Security Agency, Worked for congressman Bob McEwen in Washington, D.C., Graduated with a degree in Persian Farsi & English literature from New York, Graduated first in my class with a bachelors of business administration from UC, went to a top 25 law school and graduated in the top 25% of my class, moved back to Ohio, got married, started my own law firm which I have grown to 8 attorneys, had twins who are now 3 years old (Matthew and Elizabeth), and in April 2006 there was the birth of our third Child, Sophia.

Recurrence:

Also, in April 2006, when I was 39 years old, I went in for a regular physical exam.  A couple of days later, my doctor called me.  He saw lymph nodes in my neck and chest on an X-Ray.  I asked him his opinion, and he was very frank.  He thought it was Hodgkin’s.  He set up an appointment with a personal friend of his who was an oncologist, Dr. Phil Leming.  Dr. Leming saw me after hours the next night.  After a series of tests, including surgery, a bone marrow test, and a biopsy, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease, Stage IIA.  A recurrence after 25 years is what they call a ‘very late recurrence.’  A statistical anomaly.   Rare enough that it is uncharted.

I had chemotherapy through 2006, went into remission in November 2006 and had two more treatments, the last on December 13, 2006.  On January 9, 2007, I went in for a PET/CT.  I thought, “How ridiculous, even if there is going to be a recurrence, it won’t happen after only one month.  Some the chemicals aren’t even out of my body, yet.”  Wrongo bucko.  Recurrence.

So, as I stand before you today, I am a two time cancer survivor and presently the disease grows inside of me.  It is proving to be tenacious.

But I tell you that I am blessed.

The Price:
In day to day life, you never see a child with cancer.  That is not true when you are a kid with cancer.  You go to pediatric oncology.  Pediatric oncology is a clearinghouse for kids with cancer.  That’s where the bald headed kids live.  They are worried, but not so much as their mothers who are tired and haunted.  A child depends on the mother and the mother’s instinct is to preserve the child, but the mother is helpless.  You get to know the other kids, but guardedly.  You know that you are all in a burning house and that some will make it out and that some will be taken by the flames.  Indeed.  Some do not make it.  They have paid a terrible price for our wisdom.

Alese has also paid the price for our wisdom.

But I say again, that I am blessed.

The Blessings:
Having cancer has blessed me over and again. 

Having Cancer as a child teaches you the lessons of mortality at a very young age.  Some might believe that it drives me.  That is not true.  Rather, it has taught me to be not afraid.  All of the things that I have accomplished in my life, I owe to the lessons learned from cancer.  I have never been intimidated to take risk.  Cancer rids you of the complacency that a matter can be completed tomorrow.  I am not afraid to have business risk, or to go to war, or to pour myself utterly into a pursuit.

But it has taught me much more.

Having Cancer has given me the ability to sympathize with others and has made me more gentle.

I work with many young people, whom I love.  People model after one another.  I have the rare opportunity to be a good model for these young people.  For as surely as the sun rises, each of them will face adversity in their lives.  When they do, I pray that I will have been a good example.  That is a rare opportunity.

Even at work, I have the opportunity to continue to teach excellence and diligence to the young attorneys around me, so that they will become more determined.

More importantly, cancer has taught me that I cannot do it all on my own.  Listen, even if you wanted to, you don’t walk this road alone.  When cancer came to me, it forced me to walk the path.  But it also forced my mother to walk the path, and my father, my siblings, and now, my wife, Julia, is the primary one who walks the path with me, and my children.  But you see, this isn’t a curse.  There is a lovely mutuality and interaction between people.  We are not created to walk any road alone.  Neither easy nor difficult.  We go together.  That is a spiritual lesson that God has taught me through cancer.

Cancer has taught me that God hears the cries of His people.  Truly, I do not stand before you today without prayer.

Cancer has taught me that when you lose a friend, you still have to turn and face tomorrow.  You have to have the courage to take the first step forward.

So, you see.  I am the most blessed of men.

Dorothy:

You know that Dorothy went to OZ, and as soon as she got there, she removed the ruby slippers from the feet of the Wicked Witch of the East.  Kansas was grey and Oz was colorful, but Dorothy knew where she belonged and wanted to go home.  So, the Good Witch sent Dorothy down the yellow brick road to the City of Emeralds.  Her faithful dog Toto traveled with Dorothy and along the way, Dorothy met her friends the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion.  In the book, the Wicked Witch of the West sends wolves, crows, bees, soldiers, and the winged monkeys to stop Dorothy and her friends.  But eventually, Dorothy kills the Wicked Witch of the West and asks the Wizard of Oz to send her home.  He cannot.  Dorothy despairs.  But, the Good Witch, who sent Dorothy on the yellow brick road in the first place, explains to Dorothy that she had the ability to go home the entire time.   All she had to do was tap her heals three times together.

The good witch knew that Dorothy had to face adversity and find who she loved and who loved her before she could accomplish her goal.

We are each given one moment.  Our lives begin here and end there.  No longer.  That may be 23 years, or 40, or 90, but our time here isn’t long.  Your life is the painting of an artist.  You.  Paint that moment well.  For time will take you and your chance will not come again.

And as for me?  I know now what will take me.  With three occurrences, it’s not a statistical secret what my fate will be.  That day may be 5 years from now, or 10, or 20, or may be next year.  I don’t know.  But I can tell you this.  It will not be today.  No.  It will not be today.  And I ask you this question, how shall I live?  How will you live?

You don’t have to have cancer to be the person who you want to be.  All you have to do is tap your heals three times and, oh the places that you will go.

Paint your moment, my friends.  Paint your moment.