Marcus
“Mr. Marcus, you have kidney, lung, and brain cancer. Stage 4. We are going to monitor you for the next 24 hours but there is not much we can do for you here. You need to go home and start making arrangements. At most, you have two years to live.”
In June 2019, I was at work. I’m a welder. I came out of my welding booth and took my shirt off, which is out of character for me. My coworkers noticed and they quickly realized I was having a medical issue. I was rushed to the hospital. As soon as I got there, I began having very intense seizures that shut down my upper respiratory system. I was put on life support and placed into a medically induced coma. I don’t remember all of this. My family was called and given the information that I would later learn. The seizures were so severe the doctors said I might not make it back. Well, after a couple of tries, I made it back apparently.
I’m a single dad, so my first thought was, “Where is my son?” He is 11, so he was not allowed into the ICU. A group of doctors came in and asked if my family would be able to take care of him for the long haul. I couldn’t believe it. I asked, “Why?” and they responded, “Mr. Marcus, you have kidney, lung, and brain cancer. Stage 4. We are going to monitor you for the next 24 hours but there is not much we can do for you here. You need to go home and start making arrangements. At most, you have two years to live.” That’s how it started. Not able to work, I lost everything real fast. I did radiation for my brain tumors and I’m on chemotherapy for the rest.
We now live in a shelter waiting on housing and social security disability income (SSDI) to come in. It is now September 11, 2019. I feel okay, I guess. MRI is showing that most of the tumors in my brain are shrinking. I haven’t seen the PET scan yet to see what the rest of the cancer is doing.
My son knows now what trouble we are both in. The hard part here is, he will survive the cancer way before he makes it into adulthood and that means I won’t be here for him anymore.
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