A Miracle

After 5 years I finally got my taste buds back.

On Jan. 10th, 2020 I asked for my pathology report at a follow up endocrinologist appointment. Luckily I was well appreciated by the BHCC Members and many are doctors and they kept asking me “where’s the pathology report?”

What I am going to share is simply a Miracle and is hard to believe but it is all true.

An old schoolmate wrote me on Facebook in 2018 and invited me up to the Jersey Shore in August. When I arrived she immediately pointed to a nodule on my neck and said “you better get that looked at”. I didn’t know this at the time but found out later when she told me her late husband had the same thing and passed from it in 2017.

Imagine all the possibilities that would have got in the way of my visit. 30+ years late, maybe never see the FB invite, just not interested and many more I could think of. And what was the probability that she had just gone through this?

So I took her advice and had it looked at. 2 biopsies later the doctor’s tell me it’s inconclusive and suspicious. I had 2 doctors. One did my first surgery to have a piece of my thyroid removed and tested and the other was my endocrinologist that was having a baby all the while I visited her office.

In August 2019 the first doctor told me it was a fairly straightforward surgery and it would take 3 hours. He apologized afterwards because it took way longer than he thought. He said “there was much more to do and I have so much muscle”. A week later I would visit him at Schar Cancer Center and he apologized more, told me I looked great ( actually he was surprised because my whole chest was black and blue ) and all the tests came back fine. You’re good to go. I said “wait… My heart is pounding so hard and a million miles a minute. I don’t feel right and I think I’m going to have a heart attack”

That was Late August 2019 and I struggled for months. I had extreme stress put on me at work and I was waiting for my heart to burst. This was how I lived for almost 5 months until I walked into that follow up appt. on January 10th, 2020.

The doctor that did my first surgery left town. Moved his practice to Ohio and I never heard from him. My endocrinologist had her baby, told me as soon as she saw me and I said…

” Congratulations. Where’s the pathology report?”

She turned white as a ghost. She never read it. Neither Doctor did. She left the exam room, came back with the 6 page report from 2019 and it clearly stated I had 2 types of cancer. Papillary and Lymphoma.

They rushed me back into surgery I had a full Thyroidectomy, I had to swallow a radioactive ☢️ pill that in minutes made a Geiger counter needle go full blast, I had weeks of $3k shots that the nurses said were so new they had never heard of them. While I was radioactive I could not be around anyone for 30 days I had to use one bathroom and could not even be near my dog

By February 2020 I was “dust”. Everything that I had gone through took it’s toll. I actually was in shock for months. Never dreamt that Doctors could let you down so drastically.

It would take a year for me to feel human again. Everything I had to learn all over again.

I actually had the offer of my dreams in Manhattan and had to close the deal with a tasting for 8. February 7th and 8th I had a cook as an assistant and I told him all I want him to do is taste everything I make. I gave him a box of spoons and he looked at me like “really?”

I still could not taste anything and these 8 NYC foodies are here. I did an 8 course dinner and they were oooing and awing. They said this is real food and 2 of the 8 said it was the best dinner they ever had in NYC.

I went home “pumped” and then the Pandemic hit. NYC was crushed and I had to tell the GM I could not accept their very generous offer.

For the next year I worked from home. This isn’t easy for a hands on Chef. I did videos and lots of training for my new job