My Story

Bill Friedrich

Rochester, MN

Cancer is never polite. However, it always offers three gifts: a huge increase in self-knowledge, more valuing of relationships, and a realization that each second of life is precious.

I was told I had a suspicious mass on Tuesday, and the only way I could make my Wednesday biopsy was to cancel an important trip to Toronto. My diagnosis occurred in mid-November, 1988, but I had been telling my HMO MD about sharp pain in my right middle ear since 1981. Each time he diagnosed an ear infection, but I never had any physical signs of one (according to the Mayo MD who reviewed his notes in 1988). The pain stopped after I moved to Minnesota in 1986, so I attributed it to TMJ and the stress of my former position. When the pain returned in 1988, my MD diagnosed a cyst in my right parotid, and I was given an antibiotic. Four weeks later, I had a CT scan, and my journey with adenoid cystic carcinoma began.

I was lucky to be employed as a child psychologist at the Mayo Clinic, and my team was well experienced with ACC. After healing from surgery, I started 9.5 weeks of ion beam radiation. One margin was not clean and that explained the lengthy radiation.

I was also told that ACC typically recurs, but I let that information slip until April 1993, when eight lung mets were discovered during a follow-up X-ray. I began a new lifestyle of daily exercise. I believed I could force my lungs to compensate for any loss of function. I developed a persisting pneumonia in 2003 and reduced lung function was a reality. But vigorous cardiovascular exercise kept the pneumonia at bay through February, 2004 when I went through two 7-treatment rounds of radiation to the largest lung met that was constricting my right bronchus and had caused the collapse of the upper part of my right lung.

My breathing has improved but I have a full-body scan scheduled in May that I refuse to think about. I am over 15 years post-diagnosis and my read of the ACCOI list serve is both inspiring and frightening. But my wife and I are closer than ever, my adult children are now sources of support, I am closer to my colleagues, and cancer forced the issue.

4-5-04

I thought I'd give a bit more information about the picture, My Truck. Shortly after I finished treatment, our son Karl, at that time 8 years old, painted my old and rusting pick-up, and later glued some action figures to the hood. I drove that truck to work for the next 5 years, and parked it among all the BMW's and Lexus' that my MD colleagues drove, and laughed every time I did-it made for great laugh therapy at a dark time. Incidentally, Karl is now finishing up art school in New York City and has sold several sculptures and prints. Bill Friedrich