Rebels, and a Check In
Most of us love rebels. The underdogs, fighting repression, sticking it to the man on behalf of the poor and weak.
Sometimes rebels are heroes and sometimes not, and I suppose it has a lot to do with where you sit. As my wise father says, “it depends upon whose ox is getting gored.”
When it comes to cancer, rebels aren’t so great. Cancer cells themselves are rebels - they seek to overthrow the orderly system of bodily health.
Multiple Myeloma is a cancer where your bone marrow, the factory for your body’s blood cells and immune system, go rebel. Bone marrow begins to produce too many of one kind and not enough of another, and the cells that get overproduced are often abnormal and act wrong.
They become corrosive, making proteins and other substances that want out of the bone marrow so badly that they begin to eat their way through the bone from the inside out. A Multiple Myeloma patient will often have lesions, places where the bone has become weakened or even holes eaten through, like Swiss cheese.
I have this in one of my ribs, on the right side, just to the right of the center of my sternum. It hurts. In my father’s words, it’s my ox that’s getting gored, and not just figuratively.
Many researchers think that Multiple Myeloma can be caused by exposure to certain hazardous chemicals, like those found in industrial solvents and petroleum products. That’s why you’re seeing these commercials now for class action lawsuits for people who lived on or near Camp Lejeune. Exposure to chemicals is thought to cause blood cancers, and if you’ve been in the military, you’ve been near many of these chemicals.
In the US Army I worked on tanks, and for the most part I loved it. It was intoxicating - the power of the weapons and the tracks, the amazing relationship within a tight crew, where you knew each others’ thoughts and actions before the other did. The marvel of sending a steel spike a mile a second through a 16” circle a kilometer away.
But I joined the Army to be a rebel, partly. In a fit of teenaged angst I was rebelling against a small town that didn’t want me to be queer, and against a father who had my best interests at heart but who represented authority to me.
I also wanted to show the world that a queer kid from Port Orchard could serve their country and be every bit as good an American as any straight one. And ask any transgender person - coming out trans is an act of rebellion against conservative straight society. Yes, they see us (and me) as societal cancer.
Was it good for me to rebel and join the Army? Yes and no. I earned the GI Bill and got college. Even more important I learned the value of loyalty and leadership. I earned pride in serving my country, and pride in being the best tank gunner many battalions had ever seen. And yes, bragging is part of being a tank person. Think General George Patton.
But ask anyone who watched me shoot. Inside I may have been queer as a $3 bill but I was deadly. They’ll tell you.
The bad part of being a rebel who joined the Army? We practically lived in diesel fuel and benzene and dry cleaning chemicals and other chemicals too. No telling what all I was exposed to. I’m convinced that my Myeloma came from my time in the Army.
Just so you know, and I mean this with all my heart, I don’t regret service to my country. I grew up with JFK’s “Ask Not…” branded on my psyche.
Was it good for society, me coming out trans? It’s a complex question but trust me, the answer depends upon which side of the ox horn you stand.
Anyway.
Multiple Myeloma is incurable. Here is how they will treat me:
- Induction chemotherapy to get my blood tests back in line, stop the progression of the disease in my bone marrow
- Harvest my own stem cells and set them aside
- Intensive chemotherapy to kill my poisoned bone marrow
- Re-inject my stem cells to rebuild new marrow
- Ongoing maintenance chemotherapy to help suppress the regrowth, which is inevitable
