Just when Denny figured he’d heard enough hard luck stories and
spent more than enough time in hospitals, he found out he was
far from finished. It was just after New Year’s and Denny woke up
with a foggy head. When that started to clear, he noticed things were
a little blurry out of his right eye. He figured he’d gotten too much
cigar smoke in his eye at the New Year’s Eve party and blew it off.
A couple of weeks later as he was coming back from church with
his parents, he mentioned it to them. Well, every couple of days after
that they asked if he had been to the eye doctor yet and of course, he
was much too busy for that. After a few more weeks, his mom called
and said, “Denny, you have an appointment with an optometrist in
Bellevue on Wednesday to get your eye checked out.”
Denny was especially busy that day and picked up the phone to
cancel the appointment, but he didn’t want to tell his parents that
he’d he skipped it, so he went. He sat in the front of the office and
looked at all the glasses in the case and thought, “This won’t be so
bad. These glasses are kind of cool and these would probably make
me look smart.” Finally, they took him to the back for his examination.
The eye doctor asked when his last trip to the optometrist had
been and Denny told him it was when he was six years old. Then the
doctor put some drops in his eyes to dilate them and left for a while.
When the doctor came back, Denny was ready and enjoying the
light show every time he turned his head. The doctor moved that big
contraption in front of his face and looked through it into his eyes. As
he examined Denny’s eyes, the doctor reached over and picked up the
phone. Denny didn’t know what the doctor said, but he sounded very
nervous and said something like, “No, it can’t wait. The appointment
has to be today. Right now.”
Denny thought, “Man, I wonder who he’s talking about. Whoever it
is, that guy sounds screwed.” Right about then, the doctor backed up,
moved the contraption away from Denny’s face and said, “I just made
you an appointment to see a retina specialist across town.”
Denny responded, “You mean that phone call was about me? I’ve
never had an appointment to get glasses before, but still, this seems a
little out of the ordinary.”
The doctor responded, “I wish I could fix your problem with
glasses, but this is way beyond that. There is something growing in
your right eye and you need to see a retina specialist right now. I just
made an appointment for you across town and they’re expecting
you.”
Denny got behind the wheel with his mind racing and his eyes still
completely dilated, so he couldn’t see a thing. He drove back and forth
between the bumps on the road, across town, to the specialist’s office.
He walked into the office and the girl at the front desk handed him a
clipboard with a form on it and asked him to fill it out. Denny looked at
it and saw nothing but a white blur. He said to her, “Would you please
look at my eyes?” She responded with a giggle, “You can just give that
to me and I’ll take care of it.”
So Denny was shuffled from room to room and from testing machine
to testing machine for the next two hours until he ended up in
an office. The doctor came in and sat on a wheeled stool. He rolled
right up to Denny. He looked at Denny and asked, “So do you like things
sugar‐coated?” Denny responded, “I love things sugar‐coated, but I
think we are way beyond that and I’m sure you don’t have enough
sugar in your whole office. So just tell me what’s going on.”
The doctor said, “Well, I would say that you have a malignant
tumor growing in your right eye” (That’s the nicest possible way to
say cancer). Denny responded, “Look doctor, I wasn’t all that thrilled
about getting glasses today, but I’ll tell you what. Forget all about this
cancer bullshit and I’ll wear a thick pair of Coke bottle glasses for the
rest of my life, including in the shower and while I sleep.”
The doctor paused then said, “I don’t think you understand what
I just told you.”
Denny countered with, “What do you mean? From what I understand,
you just told me that I have cancer in my right eye and a hell of
a fight on my hands.”
The doctor said, “That’s right. I’m just used to people breaking
down, or at the very least, crying.”
Denny told him, “Look, I’m a Christian and if God is ready for me,
then I’m ready, too. But in the meantime, I’m going to fight like hell.
So what are my options?” The doctor told Denny that he had an incredible
attitude and if he could maintain it he would come through this
just fine.
Luckily for Denny, the two top ocular cancer centers were right
across the bridge in Seattle; Swedish Hospital and the University of
Washington Cancer Center. When he left the doctor’s office, Denny’s
eyes were still dilated. He still couldn’t see and almost slammed into a
car pulling out of the parking lot.
The first place he went was to see his parents to fill them in on
the news. They were in the kitchen and Denny said, “Oh hey, I went to
the optometrist today and I have good news. I don’t need glasses.”
They both asked, “Well, what is it then?” And that’s when he told
them they should probably sit down.
Denny ended up at Swedish and met with a surgeon to discuss his
options. The doctor explained that he had three options; one, do
nothing and eventually it would kill him; two, have the eye removed
and replace it with a glass one or; three, have surgery where surgeons
would put a radioactive chip behind his eye for a week and then
go in for another surgery to remove it. The radioactive chip should
kill the tumor. Denny chose the third option, as the first two didn’t
really seem like options at all.
It was weird for Denny to go through this because he felt like he
didn’t want to tell anyone; as if in some way having cancer would
reflect badly on him. He couldn’t really explain it, but it was a very
distinct feeling. Well, he got over it because he ended up sending out
an e‐mail to all the e‐mail addresses he had, about eight to nine
hundred, explaining the whole situation. He further explained that
one in three people will have a battle with cancer and the main
reason people lose the battle is because it is not detected early
enough. If he hadn’t had two loving parents to hound him, he was
sure he would have continued to put it off indefinitely.
Denny’s e‐mail saved two lives because people read his email and
finally went to the doctor. One was a good friend who had been
having chest pains but had been putting off a doctor visit. He went to
get checked and they took him straight into surgery and found he was
90 percent blocked in two arteries and would certainly have had a
heart attack and died within months.
Denny had to wait to find out about his surgery date, as it was all
contingent on when they could get the radioactive chip. Only one
physicist in the country constructed these things. When they were
ready for him, Denny went in and they put a bracelet on him that said,
“Danger – Radiation! Do not come within five feet.” Denny asked the
surgeon, “No one can come within five feet of me because of this
radioactive chip, but it’s going to be a couple of inches from my
brain?” The doctor replied, “That’s right.”
Denny came out of the first surgery groggy, but smiled when he
heard one of the nurses speaking to another one saying, “He’s hot, be
careful. He’s hot.” Denny looked up at the nurse with an ear to ear grin
and said, “You think I’m hot?” The nurses broke up laughing. Both
surgeries went well and within two months, Denny was back on his
feet, completely healthy except for the lack of vision in his right eye.
The doctor was right, Denny’s attitude had helped carry him right
through.