I’ve got it.<\/p>\n
And I was just as stunned as you are.<\/p>\n
Oh, where to begin…<\/p>\n
I guess with my annual checkup.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t get one?\u00c2\u00a0 You should.\u00c2\u00a0 I questioned my internist a few years back.\u00c2\u00a0 Told him that I read in the "New York Times" that it was unnecessary.\u00c2\u00a0 He was taken aback.\u00c2\u00a0 Breaking the silence he said to tattoo it on my arm, to get a physical every year.\u00c2\u00a0 You’d be amazed how much can change in twelve months.<\/p>\n
He turned out to be right.<\/p>\n
Results weren’t supposed to be in for a week.\u00c2\u00a0 I got a sinking feeling when his office called the very next day, Thursday, December 3rd. And dialing back as soon as I got the message they told me the doctor was on the other line.\u00c2\u00a0 But to hold.<\/p>\n
This isn’t good.<\/p>\n
And it wasn’t.<\/p>\n
My white blood cell count was 20,000.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, just a tiny bit more.\u00c2\u00a0 And to make sure their machine was right, they retested it at St. John’s.\u00c2\u00a0 Came up even higher than that, although they attribute that to calibration error.<\/p>\n
But there was no mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 The number should have been between 5,000 and 12,000, and I was blowing past that by a mile.<\/p>\n
Now what?<\/p>\n
I had to see the hematologist.<\/p>\n
Stat.<\/p>\n
Because in less than a week, I was going out of town for nearly a month.<\/p>\n
They offered me an appointment a few hours before I departed.<\/p>\n
That wasn’t going to work.<\/p>\n
My internist made a call and got me squeezed in at ten thirty the following morning.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, I surfed the Web.\u00c2\u00a0 Tried to resist, but you can’t.<\/p>\n
Could be infection, stress or leukemia.<\/p>\n
I had no infections, I felt completely fine, this wasn’t good.<\/p>\n
The hematologist at Santa Monica and 20th said there was only a one percent chance I had leukemia.\u00c2\u00a0 Whew!\u00c2\u00a0 It would take a month for a definitive result, but she’d call me at the end of the day after she looked at the blood smear, which would completely rule out leukemia.<\/p>\n
But the phone never rang.\u00c2\u00a0 Until nearly ninety minutes past the appointed hour.\u00c2\u00a0 When she started talking about something called CML. A type of leukemia.\u00c2\u00a0 But what really weirded me out was she described the treatment, in detail.<\/p>\n
But I thought the odds were only one percent?<\/p>\n
Well, now she said twenty.<\/p>\n
This was going in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n
So I got ahold of Irving.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s batting 1,000.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s hooked me up with the best back doctor, the preeminent kidney specialist, the guy to repair Felice’s ACL…\u00c2\u00a0 He’s got the medical system wired.<\/p>\n
But he’d never needed a hematologist.<\/p>\n
So he asked his doctor friend, who coughed up a name.<\/p>\n
And after stressing all weekend, I called at the crack of dawn and got an appointment at 3:30 Monday.\u00c2\u00a0 In Beverly Hills with the big guy.<\/p>\n
I’d convinced myself I had a sinus infection.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve had a post-nasal drip for months.<\/p>\n
And this doctor scanned the initial report and said there’d be no problem.<\/p>\n
But then he got a peek at the smear.\u00c2\u00a0 Which at his office, was available instantly.<\/p>\n
He agreed with the first hematologist.\u00c2\u00a0 He saw what she was talking about.\u00c2\u00a0 But he thought the odds of me having CML were…<\/p>\n
And then he raised his hand to the ceiling.<\/p>\n
And then, when I asked him what the odds were I didn’t have CML, he put his hand near the floor.<\/p>\n
Holyfuckingshit.<\/p>\n
This second guy said there was a definitive test.\u00c2\u00a0 Which he could get run at Cedars within seven to twelve days.\u00c2\u00a0 That the month delay the other hematologist was speaking of…they don’t even do that test anymore, it’s inaccurate.<\/p>\n
But it didn’t take even a week.\u00c2\u00a0 Only three days.\u00c2\u00a0 In near zero weather waiting for Andy and Dan at the bottom of the Elk Camp lift at Snowmass on Thursday December 10th, my BlackBerry rang.\u00c2\u00a0 I had it.\u00c2\u00a0 CML.\u00c2\u00a0 Leukemia.<\/p>\n
When Andy and Dan arrived I told them to ski off.<\/p>\n
Then I got a few questions answered.<\/p>\n
Turns out all of my white blood cells were affected.\u00c2\u00a0 He’d anticipated only twenty to sixty percent.\u00c2\u00a0 I had to start treatment immediately.<\/p>\n
But first I had to get to the bottom of the hill.\u00c2\u00a0 And then we had to get back to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
Now when something like this happens, everybody goes into high gear.\u00c2\u00a0 My internist felt guilty regarding the first doctor’s efforts and said I had to see his buddy, head of hematology at UCLA, who treats Kareem.<\/p>\n
But I thought the paper said Kareem had cancer?<\/p>\n
Yes, that’s what CML is.\u00c2\u00a0 Blood cancer.<\/p>\n
Monday morning, a week ago, exactly one week after I first saw him, hematologist number two prescribed a pill, told me I could go back to Colorado, to get a blood test in a week and that odds were over ninety percent that I’d be fine.<\/p>\n
The third doctor, who I saw at UCLA thereafter?<\/p>\n
He was a bit more exact.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, there was an 87% chance I’d be fine.\u00c2\u00a0 Because of Gleevec.<\/p>\n
Used to be you got CML and you died.\u00c2\u00a0 In five years.<\/p>\n
Oh, maybe a bone marrow transplant would save you.\u00c2\u00a0 But odds were fifteen to twenty percent the procedure would kill you.<\/p>\n
But then in 1998, this pharmaceutical company in Switzerland developed Gleevec.\u00c2\u00a0 And since its introduction, 87% of those taking it have gone on to be fine.<\/p>\n
But it’s only ten years.<\/p>\n
But statistics are good.<\/p>\n
And if I fall into the other thirteen percent?<\/p>\n
Well, there are two other drugs.\u00c2\u00a0 And the aforementioned bone marrow transplant.\u00c2\u00a0 But the third hematologist, the UCLA doctor, preferred to focus on the positive, the 87% who were doing just fine.<\/p>\n
But unlike hematologist number two, hematologist number three insisted I stay in L.A., that a return to Colorado was not prudent.\u00c2\u00a0 You see the Gleevec, if it worked, was going to kill all my white blood cells.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’d be defenseless against illness.\u00c2\u00a0 If I got an infection, I could die.\u00c2\u00a0 I needed to be near an emergency room.\u00c2\u00a0 And if I got any rise in temperature, I needed to make a mad dash for the hospital.<\/p>\n
Well, that scared me.\u00c2\u00a0 I decided to stay put.<\/p>\n
But I couldn’t start taking the Gleevec immediately.\u00c2\u00a0 Because my insurance company wouldn’t cough it up.\u00c2\u00a0 They needed to hear from the doctor himself.<\/p>\n
Because, you see, Gleevec costs $4,900 a month.<\/p>\n
My regular pharmacy doesn’t stock it.\u00c2\u00a0 Almost no one does.\u00c2\u00a0 The carrying costs are too high.\u00c2\u00a0 And only 5,000 people a year get diagnosed with CML.<\/p>\n
But eventually, the next day, I got the pills.\u00c2\u00a0 From the UCLA pharmacy.\u00c2\u00a0 Which keeps a tiny inventory.<\/p>\n
They make you nauseous.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not so much your stomach, you have a gag response.\u00c2\u00a0 You feel like you’re going to throw up.<\/p>\n
But only for six weeks.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what the doctor, my doctor, the third hematologist, the one at UCLA, treating Kareem, who I decided to go with, said.<\/p>\n
I just saw him.<\/p>\n
The Gleevec is working.\u00c2\u00a0 My white blood cell count dropped to 8,450!<\/p>\n
But those are all clones of the bad cell.\u00c2\u00a0 The good white blood cells?\u00c2\u00a0 They haven’t come out of hiding, they haven’t repopulated my body yet.<\/p>\n
Why me?<\/p>\n
My internist said he doesn’t ask questions without answers.<\/p>\n
But despite the lack of answers, I’ll tell you I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster.\u00c2\u00a0 I knew I was going to die.\u00c2\u00a0 But not SOON!<\/p>\n
And there’s a good chance it won’t be soon.\u00c2\u00a0 That maybe I can live thirty years and die of something else.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, the pill, this "wonder drug" as my UCLA guy referred to it, has only been on the market for a decade.<\/p>\n
Still, it’s a wake-up call.\u00c2\u00a0 This is how the movie ends.\u00c2\u00a0 You die.\u00c2\u00a0 Your friends and relatives remember you, and then they’re gone too.<\/p>\n
It’s all irrelevant.<\/p>\n
So if you’ve wondered where I’ve been…<\/p>\n
At first I wasn’t gonna tell you.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I knew you’d treat me differently.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, I would.\u00c2\u00a0 Somebody tells me they’ve got leukemia?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s SERIOUS!<\/p>\n
But the odds are with me.<\/p>\n
And after reading a ton of books on my Kindle, and surfing the Web, I’ve realized that, as Ray Davies so famously sang, "unemployment is unenjoyment."\u00c2\u00a0 Now I know why people become terminally ill and continue to go to work.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to do SOMETHING!\u00c2\u00a0 Otherwise your life has no focus.\u00c2\u00a0 To be rich, footloose and fancy free with no obligations?\u00c2\u00a0 Not for me.\u00c2\u00a0 Not for anybody.<\/p>\n
But how can I write, how can I work, holding this secret?<\/p>\n
I realized I had to tell you.\u00c2\u00a0 For me.<\/p>\n
I needed to wait for a period of stabilization.\u00c2\u00a0 Which seems to have arrived.\u00c2\u00a0 I still cannot say out loud that I’ve got leukemia.\u00c2\u00a0 But for the first time, today a doctor spoke positively about my results.<\/p>\n
There’s a good chance I can take this Gleevec and the CML will be busted down to essentially nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 Potentially for decades.<\/p>\n
I hope so.<\/p>\n
P.S. My previous blood work, from 2008, was completely normal.\u00c2\u00a0 This is how they catch CML in most instances, via a routine checkup.<\/p>\n
P.P.S. I went with hematologist number three because he specializes in leukemia.\u00c2\u00a0 Hematologist number two specializes in lymphoma.<\/p>\n
P.P.P.S. Anthem Blue Cross covered the complete cost of the Gleevec.<\/p>\n
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