Happiness is Surviving Cancer:: My 73-Day Journal from Discovery to Recovery

By Jerry L. Haynes

For the last twenty years I've taken pride that I lived my life with joy and I vowed I'd not let anything change that.  In September, 2019, it was discovered that I had a malignant growth on my left kidney.  My surgery was set for November.  I vowed I'd live these three months at the same level of joy I'd lived prior to the discovery.  This journal, with photos and videos, takes the reader on that journey.  It is my hope that others who have received a similar diagnosis with gain strength from the journal.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jul 6, 2020

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Happiness is…Surviving Cancer: 

My 73-Day Journal from Discovery to Recovery

Jerry L. Haynes

Happiness is…Surviving Cancer: 

My 73-Day Journal from Discovery to Recovery

I am an intensely happy person.  My bad days are ones in which I’m only moderately happy.

Labor Day weekend, of 2019, was going to be one of those joyous weekends, hectic but fun!  On Friday, I set out flags with my Ruritan friends to honor our country.  I admit, sometimes, in the dead of winter, or during rain, I think about finding an excuse to not go.  But I am a Vietnam veteran who was never deployed.  I feel it a special honor, and obligation, to honor our veterans who saw action in this way.  Paying tribute, and honoring others, always brings happiness.  And if I over-exerted myself in setting up those 10-foot poles, we had a massage awaiting us later in the day.  Then, to top off an already great day, would be a Friday night High School football game.  And if that wasn’t enough to put me on a happiness high, on Saturday, I’d have a meeting with a potential client, brunch with our family, my annual family reunion and a trip to the Barter Theatre for a performance.  Any two of these would have promised to make it a hap, Hap, Happy weekend. All of them combined would give me enough happiness fuel to last for a month.  

Except, on Saturday, I woke up about 4 AM with excruciating pain.  When my wife got up about 7, I told her I needed to go to the ER.  After a CT Scan, they came back with the diagnosis.  I had kidney stones in both kidneys. That would be the good news though.  The bad was that I was also told they had found a solid mass on my left kidney and I was to report to a urologist as soon as possible. 

Since Monday was a holiday, Tuesday would be the first day the Urology Office would be open.  Any of you that have ever needed to schedule an appointment with a specialist knows the first day an office is open, is far from the first day you can make an appointment.  But my wife, a retired Urology Nurse, phoned her former office.  The doctor I’d been seeing for a different problem didn’t have an opening for two months.   One of the newer doctors in the practice had an appointment available that very afternoon.  

I was remarkably relaxed. The doctor came in and I prepared myself for him to schedule a biopsy.  I’d then have to wait to hear the results.  Instead, he began discussing surgery to remove at least part of my left kidney.

So you’re sure it’s cancer? I asked.  About 98% sure, he answered.  

 OK, I’ll confess.  My first thought when I heard cancer was God, how could you do this to me?  I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life, and there’s 80-year-old men running around smoking 2 packs a day.

 Then God reminded me of two things.  Several years before I had promised myself, I’d never say Why me Lord?, instead I’d always say Why not me, Lord?  Second, for the last 15 years I’ve preached on my website and in my blogs we are in total control of our