My True Hero
by Arlene Pollock
I do not know how to describe my true hero other than to tell you about him. He is not a war hero, as he was not born in time to enter World War II. He is not an unsung hero from that generation of men who went to war with such enthusiasm. He does have the same enthusiasm but it is directed in a different way.
Had I been this person, I would not have had the same oneness of mind to do what he did. He did not run into a machine gun nest to protect his buddies or any other of the heroic acts performed in the war to receive a medal. But he receives the highest award there is that I can give him.
He has been a cancer patient since 1963, the year a partial laryngectomy was performed on him at UCLA Medical Center. It was a new procedure, and he was the guinea pig, and the youngest person in the hospital to receive this operation. It was a success, and he could speak with a very sexy rasping voice. They had taken out the diseased vocal chord and replaced it with plastic. He was a remarkable patient. After a few weeks he was eating his favorite pastrami sandwich and writing on a slate as fast as possible to answer questions that were asked to him by friends, patients, doctors, and anybody else that he could talk to. You see, he was a born salesman and needed to communicate with anyone who would listen or look at his slate. The funny part of all of this was, people would raise their voices when they spoke to him and he would write as fast as he could, “Hey, I can hear, I just can’t talk !”
Life went on at a leisurely pace until the 1980s when he decide to smoke a pipe, forgetting that the cause of his troubles was four packs of cigarettes a day that caused the cancer in his throat. Two of his very good friends were smoking pipes and they took him into the tobacco stores to show him the beautiful pipes and smell the wonderful aroma of Tobacco. He was thrilled, and for the next few years he indulged himself by buying expensive pipes and aromatic tobacco.
In 1983, he was having difficulty in breathing and swallowing. He went back to UCLA, this time for a total larynx removal which left him with a hole in the throat to breath through called a stoma. At that time very little was known to the public about this part of the disease. He had to learn to speak again with an Esophageal voice and depend on an artificial voice instrument as a back up. He needed the best of help, and with trials and tribulations this was overcome.
He wanted to shower and could not, because water from the shower could get into the stoma and he could drown. He designed a “cover up” that enabled him to shower, and he now sells the product to new laryngectomy patients so they can enjoy the fruits of his labor. But again, the Lord stepped in and put his hands up.... “Things are too peaceful let’s liven up the hero’s life again.” In November of 1992, they found cancer of the esophagus. This too had to be removed, and again he was the guinea pig. Instead of going to UCLA Medical Center, because they did not have the new procedures or the doctor, they sent him to Mount Zion Hospital, an affiliate of UC San Francisco. So he came up to Northern California to fight for his life again.
The procedure worked but not without difficulties and 16 operations in one year. It seems that the replacement for the esophagus, the skin from the wrist and forearm, did not want to be an esophagus. It wanted to be a wrist and forearm, healing itself by closing up its opening so small that no food could go down into the stomach. They also took the skin from the thigh to make the wrist and forearm look normal. That part of the plastic surgery healed without any problem.
But, my hero, my husband, wanted to live and would not let this get the best of him. He fought like a son of a gun to prevent anything from happening to him to make him die. He put on the biggest fight of his life to live and enjoy the fruits of his labor even with all the pitfalls in his life.
Now Lord, look at him, and enjoy the man you put on this earth because he has love, life, happiness and a sense of humor. I don’t think that you wish this to be forgotten, that is why I am writing about my true hero. Just think, how many men do you know who can trim their hair off either on the inside or outside of their neck ?