A New Excerpt from "Back To Life: A Bladder Cancer Journey"

Celebrating the first anniversary of the publishing of my book, I offer my readers another, longer excerpt. I hope you enjoy. You can buy the book in trade paperback or Kindle e-book HERE.

Chapter Forty-One

It was still pitch dark the next morning as the riders drifted into the hotel lobby. There was a special cash buffet set up there that offered coffee, juices, yogurt, bagels, and fruit. I loaded up on a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese, two bananas, and copious amounts of black coffee. In front of the hotel, steam poured out of the buses’ exhausts in the cold, dark Texas morning.

It was about a forty-five minute drive out to the big school complex that would serve as the start/finish line and the site of the post-ride party, which featured live bands as well as plenty of food and drink, cookout style. The conversation on the bus was subdued, with most riders chatting quietly with their partners. We were all thinking about the physical challenge to come, and no one more so than yours truly.

The weather in the Texas Hill Country in October is nothing if not unpredictable. The pre-dawn temperatures can be in the low forties at the beginning of the ride, and it can easily hit the high nineties by the noontime finish. One year it was in the high thirties at the start, with many riders clad in nothing but cycling shorts and a short-sleeve jersey. That year I was shaking so hard at the start that I thought I might crash, but I had at least thought to stuff a pair of fleece arm warmers in my back pocket.

On Sunday, October 26th, 2008, the day started out cool and clear, with just a light breeze blowing, near ideal conditions for a long ride. I proudly rolled out with the first group, which included Lance and his group of celebrity friends followed by the different jersey teams in order. My strategy was the same as in past years: try to find a large group of experienced riders that were going at a comfortable pace for me to hang in with. I had no illusions that this was going to be anything like the screaming-fast rides of years past.

As I tried to hang with one group, then another and another, I realized that even my modest expectations were too optimistic. I finally settled in with my fourth or fifth group, riding on the mainly flat first part of the course at barely 15 mph.

A little under two hours into the ride I pulled off the group at the twenty-five-mile rest stop. I needed some nutrition and refills on my water and energy-drink bottles. I ate a banana and some wheat bread slathered with peanut butter, stretched a bit, and pulled out after barely a ten-minute stop, trying to avoid the muscle tightness that comes with longer breaks out of the saddle.

About three miles down the road, struggling to stay with yet another group going around 15 mph, I began to feel light-headed and nauseous. I knew this was not good, particularly as I had not yet made it to the halfway point of the hundred-kilometer ride, the thirty-one-mile mark. I soldiered on, getting dropped by one group after another, and finally, almost three-and-a-half hours after starting, I pulled into the forty-five-mile rest stop. I had serious doubts as to whether I would or could remount the bike.

I stayed at the rest stop way too long. After drinking water, refilling my bottles, and eating a Cliff bar that tasted like peanut butter mixed with sawdust, I lay down on my back in the shade of a fence along side the road. I remember looking up at the puffy white clouds and the cobalt blue Texas sky. I have no idea how long I lay there, but when I stood up I was dizzy and disoriented and my legs were stiff and sore. The bus that was parked there to take abandoning riders back to the start/finish area beckoned. The sun was high in the cloudless sky and the temperature broke ninety degrees. I had seventeen more miles to go.

When you do the Ride for the Roses, the Foundation provides you with a rider number for your jersey, but also offers three different placards to attach to your jersey or bike. The first two are “In Honor Of…” and “In Memory Of… .” You write in the name of your friend, relative, or loved one who has survived cancer or who has been killed by it. The third sign simply says, “I Am a Cancer Survivor.” My past four rides, I had worn the first two, one for my cancer-veteran wife and one for my good friend’s wife who died from breast cancer. It was her death that motivated me to raise well over a quarter of a million dollars for the Foundation over the course of my five rides.

In 2008 I had a fourth sign on my back in addition to the race number and the two memorials. I am a cancer survivor. I thought about that fourth sign as I contemplated the alternatives: walk across the grass in front of the rest stop and put my bike in the bus and climb aboard, or throw a leg over it and give it one more try. With the words “In Honor Of…” and “In Memory Of…” singing in my head, the decision was easy. I rode unsteadily out onto the course, legs stiff and achy, stomach churning, head pounding under the noonday sun.

After the first two miles, I was questioning my decision. People on hybrids and mountain bikes who in past years would have finished the better part of two hours behind me were cruising up and passing. With my carbon-fiber bike and full Livestrong Yellow Jersey Team kit, it was obvious that this was a rider in distress.

Then a strange thing happened. As a small group approached me, they began to call out, encouraging me to keep on riding. I realized that it was the survivor badge pinned to the back of my jersey. I waved and smiled, and five minutes later it happened again, and then again.

I still had twelve miles to go, and I remembered one of the mental tricks we used to use when we were suffering at the end of long rides. We would say to ourselves, “I can survive anything for ten miles.” So the goal became the ten-mile mark rather than the finish line. It sounds like a pretty cheesy motivator, but it actually had worked for my friends and me more than once. I said it out loud: “I have only two miles to go. Then I can survive anything for ten miles!”

With about five miles left, I heard the unmistakable thrum of aerodynamic racing wheels; a large group of fast riders was approaching. It was a group about to complete the 108-mile route that I had done in previous years, and they had nearly doubled my speed to be passing me. I pulled far to the right as they approached.

It was a group of about thirty guys, and as they flew by me I noticed several polka-dot jerseys and a couple of yellows. Then I heard a shout, “Hey, I think that’s Frank!”

Suddenly two riders dropped off the back of the group and slowed quickly. They drifted back to where I was huffing along at about 11 or 12 mph. It was two of my Yellow Jersey cronies with whom I had ridden in several of the rides over the years.

“Jesus, dude, are you OK?” said Jim, who was a forty-something doctor from Texas and a very strong rider. Both of them were looking at me with clear concern.

“Thanks guys,” I said, “but I’m totally toast. I’m just going to ride my own pace on in. I’ll be OK. No need for you two to wait around. Ride on.”

“Fuck we will,” said David, an investment counselor from Montana. “Hop on.”

In cycling terms, they were offering to pace me in to the finish, allowing me to ride in their slipstream and conserve valuable energy. They ignored my pleas for them to leave me, and rode together very closely side by side in order to give me the maximum benefit of their draft. It is gesture of camaraderie and compassion that I will never forget.

The finish line at the Ride for the Roses is unlike any other. The approach road is lined with hundreds of cheering spectators, volunteers, and friends and relatives of the riders. As you approach the line, the route divides in two; the smaller lane on the left is just for cancer survivors, while the larger lane to the right is for everybody else, the “civilians” as the volunteer ride marshals called them.

Laura had warned me about this. A few years back she had done one of the shorter rides while I did the big one, and she, as a survivor, naturally went through the appropriate lane, where she was handed the traditional yellow rose. I was still out on the course at the time, but she described the flood of emotions that overtook her when she crossed the line and accepted the rose. Naturally, I told her that was unlikely to be a problem for me. After all, I’m a big tough guy, right?

Yeah, right.

The last three hundred meters of the course ascended a small rise to the finishing straight. My two protectors pulled away with a wave as they delivered me to the split in the course. They were going right, but I was going to the left. I had been woozy and mentally and physically sluggish for several hours, but in those last few moments before crossing the line everything was crystal clear. I heard every cheer of encouragement, saw every waving flag. And then the banner was upon me. Under I went, too exhausted to even raise my arms in the traditional cyclist’s finishing salute. I coasted up to the volunteer who extended her hand with a single yellow rose.

I took the rose and coasted slowly over to the side, away from the finishers swooping through the chute. I saw Laura standing there with tears in her eyes. I dropped my bike on the ground and we wrapped our arms around each other. And then I totally lost it, literally crying on her shoulder for many minutes.

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Click HERE to view a gallery of pictures of many of the actual events depicted in Back To Life, including the finish line and the yellow rose at the Ride for the Roses.

Portland - April 8th, 2016

An Excerpt from "Back To Life: A Bladder Cancer Journey" by Frank Sadowski

Here is a short excerpt from my new book. It is now available at Amazon.com in both Kindle e-book and paperback formats. Go to Back To Life to view and purchase!

Part way through chapter eight......

      Recovering a bit, I then asked him about the surgery. I said I assumed that I would have a hole in my side and an external bag for urine. He said that was certainly an option and a possibility, but that there were other options, such as a neobladder. I had never heard of this, and he began to explain it to me in some fairly technical medical terms. It was at this moment that a nurse came in and told him he was needed in another exam room for a few moments. He excused himself, and I sat by myself in shock and terror. Even though I had known he was from the surgery side, I didn’t think this was how this day was going to go. Dr. Reid knocked and entered. He told me he understood that Dr. Daneshmand was beginning to explain the neobladder option. I said that was true but I really didn’t understand it yet. He sat across from me on the stool where Dr. Daneshmand had been sitting and put his chin in his hands, elbows on his knees.

      “Here’s what we do,” he said. “We cut you from stem to stern, and take out your bladder, prostate, seminal vesicles, and thirty to fifty abdominal lymph nodes. Then we cut out a one-meter section of your small intestine, the ileum, still alive and hooked up to the blood supply. Then we use the intestine to build a new bladder in the cavity where your original bladder came out. We hook one end up to your kidneys, the other end to your exit pipe, and you’re good to go.”

      I was completely floored that an actual doctor had put it in such terms. Dr. Reid looked at me and winked.

      “Actually, Frank, it’s just a little more complicated than that.”

Chapter Nine

      When Dr. Daneshmand returned a few minutes later, he resumed his explanation of the surgery he was proposing. It was pretty much exactly as Dr. Reid had paraphrased it; a new bladder would be constructed from my own body tissue. I told him that I would need to talk to my wife and think about it for twenty-four hours or so. He said of course, and the day was over. It was after six o’clock. I had been there for almost seven hours. I was yawning as I retrieved my car from the underground garage and drove to my hotel. When I got there I called home and gave Laura the long version of the day. She was encouraged that I thought so highly of Dr. Daneshmand and his team, but expressed her concern that he was asking me to jump into exactly what I had been so emphatically warned against: a quick decision to undergo radical surgery.

      We had lived in Portland from 1999–2001 before moving to the Seattle area, and I had lived in a company apartment downtown for five months before the family moved out there, so I knew downtown Portland very well. It was a typical November night, forty degrees or so with a light, steady rain. I walked up to Broadway and then north a half-dozen blocks to Higgins, one of the best known Pacific Northwest “farm to table” restaurants. I can’t remember eating, but I guess I did, and an hour or so later I was back on the wet streets, walking down Salmon Street to the Willamette River waterfront. I walked the length of the Tom McCall Waterfront Park on the west side of the river and crossed the Steel Bridge to the East Side Esplanade. It was getting late, but there were plenty of Portlanders out on a rainy weekday night—walkers, runners, and bikers, all oblivious to the steady rain. I walked on, pondering my situation. Was I ready to put my faith and possibly my life in the hands of a doctor I had met less than ten hours earlier? It was hard to grasp, but the more I turned his statistics and his logic over in my head, the more sense it made.

      I returned to the hotel sometime after 2:00 a.m., took a hot shower, and fell asleep quickly, to my surprise. I woke without an alarm at 6:15 the next morning, and felt amazingly well rested. A weird feeling of calm and confidence had come over me. I was also starving. As I ate bacon and eggs and drank good strong Portland coffee, I realized from where my calm confidence was coming. I had made my decision without consciously knowing it.

      I would put my life in Dr. Daneshmand’s hands, play offense, and have the surgery.

                               

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“As a Stage 4 melanoma survivor, I found myself deeply moved by – and profoundly grateful for – Frank Sadowski's honest and enlightening account of what it's really like inside the cancer experience. But more than that, simply as a reader, I was enthralled with his effortless gift for compelling storytelling. Back to Life is full of humor, suspense, and grit, a medical drama that brims with heart and soul.”

-- Mary Elizabeth Williams, staff writer at Salon.com and author of Gimme Shelter and A Series of Catastrophes and Miracles: A True Story of Love, Science, and Cancer.