So Many Thanks to Give But I Will Start Off with Really Just One

Sometimes there are moments of grace in this world. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes the stars align. I have had my share of the better things in life. Shamefully I have not celebrated the events or the people who made them happen enough.

Maybe I will someday write up a list of people to thank for the good they have brought into my life. From my mother who urged me to always try and achieve the most I could academically to my father who insisted I live by time tested principles of honor and integrity various people gave me gifts some tangible and some intangible. I owe both my late parents many thanks. Also, I owe my wife thanks for giving me great kids, incredible support when things got rough, and three-square meals a day for almost forty years. Oh yeah, and I owe her thanks because she loves me.

I mean there are odd people like John Dorsey who introduced me to jazz, one of my musical passions.  From the Mahavishnu Orchestra to Miles Davis those late nights sitting around Butterfield Hall listening to jazz changed how my brain worked. In the vein of thanks owed it would be impossible not to mention one of my former girlfriends who shamed me into being much, much neater. My old roommate Nate actually called me out when I stopped throwing my dirty clothing into a pile in the corner of our room and started using a laundry basket. Thank you, you know who you are.

There are three doctors I owe my deepest thanks to. These are first Anthony Meier. M.D., second the gent at LIU whose name I cannot spell, and finally Dr. Sam Kaffenberger at U of M Taubman. Tony Meier found evidence of prostate cancer in me way before it normally comes to light. He handed me over to the guy at the Lansing Institute of Urology who DaVinci machined my ass and rendered me prostate cancer free for a full 18 years after diagnosis. The same LIU doctor when I had a slight bladder irritation sent me for a CT scan and found a small tumor in my left kidney. He sent me for a biopsy and viola it was renal cancer.

Because the doctor at LIU was about to retire, I decided to travel to the University of Michigan for treatment. I asked one of the ladies who know in East Lansing (a subset of the ladies who lunch) who was the pro from Dover for renal cancer at U of M. I got a referral to him but his staff bounced me to another guy. Seems my tumor was too small for him to work on. The second one bounced me for the same damn reason. My tumor was too small for his standards. He sent me to the next guy, the new guy. I checked the new guy out and with a path running through Sloan Kettering I decided to trust Dr. Kaffenberger with my life.

From the get go Dr. Kaffenberger was compassionate, understanding and very, very real. He made me feel confident in my choice to let him do the cutting on me. Losing a fifth of my left kidney hurt but the care and follow up I got from this fine doctor gave me hope.

Today after five years of annual visits my annual conversations with this good doctor about life in Portugal and raising challenging children have ended.  Five years out the tables and charts say I have less than a 1 % chance kidney cancer will recur. So, the insurance company will no longer pay for that once a year drugged up MRI and the following ½ hour chat between me and the good doctor. We said goodbye today, a good goodbye and the doc said if I needed anything medical, fire him off an email and he would match me up with the best out there. I believe him

I celebrate you Dr. Kaffenberger and your team at U of M.