"In about 30 minutes I went from the illusion of being forever young to the reality that life has its own way of choosing its own course. [The doctor] turned to me and uttered a phrase for which I was utterly unprepared. He said, ‘You have a malignancy,’ and, making no attempt to prepare me for what was coming, he plunged right ahead. He said, ‘You have got multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow, adding, you know people who have died from this.’ [The doctor continued] 'Life expectancy? Statistically five years but you should beat that.’ I had often wondered how I would react to this kind of news, but then don’t we all? Now I know — family first.”
On telling his wife, Meredith:
“I made a drink, scotch on the rocks, showered, sat on the edge of the bed and said to her, ‘There’s something I’ve not told you … I have cancer….it is not curable but it is treatable, and they assure me that great progress is being made.’ I had rehearsed what I was going to say because I wanted to be precise, but also because I was struggling to deal with a strange tug of war between a new reality and a way of life I could not quite believe was slipping away from me. I said nothing about dying from this cancer, I didn’t expect to, but I did say, ‘This will change our lives.’ And so I decided to write this book, not as ‘Poor Tommy has cancer,’ but as a guide, if you will, for other families that are encountering this dreadful disease. Has cancer changed me? Am I a better person? That’s for others to judge. All I know is that in family, access to excellent care, the resources to pay for it, the chance to remain a journalist and have a cohort of interesting friends. I remain a lucky guy … My final lines in the book are ‘Life, what’s left, bring it on.’”
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