Battle with Cancer and Recovery

He was twenty when he was diagnosed with cancer. Two weeks from his twenty first birthday he was diagnosed with stage four cancer. It had spread to his liver and right lung. He was devastated and was admitted to the hospital in a flash almost before he knew it pretty much.

He was rushed through surgery and then to recovery. Then came the Chemotherapy, for something that is supposed to help it has some of the worst side effects he had ever seen. The constant nausea, weakness, and no appetite were debilitating to say the least. He went in weighing two hundred and eighty pounds.

He spent three months in the hospital fighting cancer with constant around the clock care. The bills kept mounting but insurance and the government took care of them as they came in. By his twenty first birthday he was eating nothing and was barely drinking liquids. He was always hooked up to fluids and a what they called at the time Pain Bag. What it was, was a measured dose of Morphine and a clicker that he got to press every so often to give himself a dose to kill the pain that was always there.

The doctors though were hopeful and told him that the cancer was shrinking. They showed him CAT scan images and X-rays that showed the spots on his liver and lung and how they were getting smaller. Too bad he didn't feel any better in fact this could possibly be the worst he had ever felt before.

Thanksgiving was coming up and he looked at himself in the mirror and couldn't recognize himself any longer. He had lost so much weight none of his clothing fit him anymore and his face looked sunken. He now weighed in at two hundred and thirty pounds. Thanksgiving came and went he never ate a dinner that Thanksgiving he spent that Thanksgiving mostly alone.

Christmas and New Years were the next holidays to come and go. He did manage to eat a little bit at this point but not much and He was visited over these holidays. He tried to keep an upbeat attitude if nothing more than to not let anyone know just how sick and depressed he was. He was also at this point Addicted to morphine and was always looking for that next fix from his machine.

By February the doctors were hinting that he was going to be sent home soon he just needed to show them that he can eat and do all those normal bodily functions. Then he was released it felt like he hadn't been outside in ages. He also looked nothing like his former self he looked like a walking skeleton now he was six foot four and weighed one hundred and ninety one pounds.

He never really recovered until he hit rock bottom. He was getting over a morphine addiction, depression and a general just feeling sorry for himself. He hit rock bottom the day he drank a bottle of whiskey and his best friend woke him up in a pool of his own vomit with a pistol next to him. Then he truly started to recover from cancer.

Hello my name is Harvey Robbins and I am a cancer survivor for fifteen years.