Life is a Ride

It starts with a first breath, and then with a cry.

It ends with a last breath on the day you die.

And in between life is a ride.

-from the song “Life is a Ride” Paul Sanchez wrote the music, Chris Joseph and Alex McMurray wrote lyrics.

In late October of 2016, I was diagnosed with stage III pancreatic cancer. I thought I was fucked.

This is my story of dealing with the physical and emotional fallout of a cancer diagnosis. It’s a story of tremendous fear. Of deep emotional pain. Of anguish, wondering how soon I was going to die and how painful my death would be.

And it’s also a story of courage while fighting fear. Of independence. Of putting one foot in front of the other. Of daring to be different and not following conventional wisdom.

Of perseverance.

It’s a story of connection. Of love. Of redemption. Of getting knocked down and finding a way to pick myself up off the mat.

Most of all, it’s a story of beating the odds and getting healthy.

****

A man who introduced himself as a radiologist entered the room where I had been nervously sitting and fidgeting impatiently for more than 30 minutes. With a solemn face he bluntly said, “Sorry to give you the bad news...we found a mass in your pancreas.”

Whatever he told me after that, I didn’t hear. It was as if someone had hit the mute button. All I could see was that he was still talking, but there wasn’t any sound coming out of his mouth.

He came unmuted at the end to say, “Talk to Doctor Mossgale. You can go home.”

A routine visit to get some medical tests had turned into a calamity.

****

It started as an innocent and typical Southern California sunny day. A Monday. The 31st of October, Halloween Day. 2016. I was 59.

That Monday morning was like most other school mornings. I woke my kids up, made sure they were fed, got them off to their school and then started my workday. My kids, Jasper and AJ, were 14 and 12 at the time.

For all of that October and the latter part of September, I had been experiencing some abdominal discomfort. I figured it was a lingering stomach bug. The discomfort was nagging me, but it certainly didn’t scream to me that something was seriously wrong. Finally, in late October, I decided to have it checked by Dr. Mossgale.

I had also, for maybe three to four months prior to October 31, been suffering from some major depression. This was strange because my life was pretty good. Work was thriving, my girlfriend, Susie, and I had righted the ship after a hiccup the year before and my kids were doing well.

I had no apparent reason to be deeply depressed during this period. For several weeks, there were many times I had contemplated ending my life. I couldn’t figure out why I felt this way, and I was too depressed and too ashamed of being depressed to tell anyone or to seek help.

I made no connection between the depression and what I thought was a stomach virus.

On October 28, I visited Dr. Mossgale. He ordered some blood work for the lab, probed around my stomach and abdomen and then suggested I get some scans “to make sure everything is okay.” What he didn’t tell me was he felt something in my abdomen during his examination. He suggested I get a CT scan and an ultrasound and wrote a prescription for me.

In the mid-afternoon of that Halloween Day, I drove by myself to the imaging center in Santa Monica, not far from my house.

I wasn’t worried at all. I was still convinced that I had nothing more than a lingering virus and that with the passage of time and maybe some supplements and temporary dietary changes, I would be healed.

After the ultrasound, I waited for the second test. And waited. And waited. Longer than a “normal” wait. Thirty to 40 minutes went by.

Getting restless and impatient, I asked the front desk person what was going on. She went back and talked to someone, then came back and told me the first of many unforgettable things I heard that day.

“We need to contact your regular doctor because we want to run some additional tests that he didn’t order.”

I could feel my heart pounding.

Finally, the imaging staff ushered me in for whatever additional tests they wanted to run along with the CT scan I’d been waiting for.

After those tests, they had me wait. This time, I was in a private room. Maybe another 30 minutes went by. This was out of the realm of normal.

****

At the imaging center the radiologist walked in with his sad face and his bad news, and after hearing “mass in your pancreas” and going deaf, I left.

I departed not knowing much. I didn’t know if it meant I had tumors elsewhere in my body. The only thing I knew was that they found this thing—a mass—in my pancreas.

I went into full-bore panic. It was a fear that I had never experienced before. I was having trouble breathing.

I stepped into my car and started crying hysterically. It was about 3 pm and I needed to get home to take my boys to their respective Halloween functions. My ex-wife, Carmen, was visiting her boyfriend in Australia, so I couldn’t ask her to help with the kids.

First, I called Susie. She was stunned.

What could she say? When most of us hear anything about pancreatic cancer, we think it’s a death sentence. So much so that it’s the go-to cancer screenwriters use when they want to write a character out of a show. Why is it the cancer of choice for killing off a character? The five-year survival rate for people with pancreatic cancer is 10 percent. Most are dead within a year.

As Susie grappled with what she had just learned, she unsuccessfully tried to calm me down. “Well, you don’t know what this means,” she said. “Maybe it’s not as serious as it sounds.”

****

Before I arrived home, I video-called Carmen.

As soon as she answered, I burst into tears. But this even worse than my conversation with Susie. Carmen immediately saw that I was very upset and crying. Instantly, I could see that she was scared and assumed she thought maybe something had happened to one of our kids.

Sensing Carmen’s fear, I said, “It’s me, it’s me!”

And then I told her what was going on. She, too, was stunned. “Should I come home?” she asked. I didn’t know what to tell her.

As I got out of the car and took the short walk to the front door of my house, I was thinking a million thoughts, none good. My dad had been diagnosed with lung cancer in late 1985 and was dead less than four months later. I wasn’t even sure I was going to survive four months.

I walked into my house and the boys and I quickly gathered together. I told them what I knew, but I gave them an edited version. And I was sobbing when I told them. And then they started crying. Telling my boys was the most difficult conversation of my entire life.

Later that night, I received a call from Dr. Mossgale. The radiologist had sent him the scan results. Dr. Mossgale said he would give me recommendations for oncologists the next day. When I asked him what I could or should do in the interim, he said yet another unforgettable thing I heard that day.

“Chris, I think you need to pray.”

I was like, What the fuck!?!?!?!

What I learned a few weeks later was that Dr. Mossgale knew about as much as I did that night: that I had a tumor, a mass in my pancreas. He didn’t know the type, the severity or anything else.

But let me tell you: when Dr. Mossgale suggested that I pray, I was even more convinced that I wouldn’t be around much longer. I thought I was done.

And I was experiencing a paralyzing fear of suffering a painful, too-soon-to-die death combined with the sadness that I was not going to live long enough to see my kids grow up.

My cancer adventure had begun.

****

Chris Joseph is a dad, environmental consultant, cancer patient advocate, best-selling author, thought leader, public speaker, and founder of two music record companies and a complementary 501(c)(3) nonprofit helping New Orleans artists and musicians. He’s also a television producer, hobbyist songwriter, podcaster, and a lover of all things outdoors.

Chris’s first book was the best seller, Life is a Ride: My Unconventional Journey of Cancer Recovery (2020). He then co-authored, The Epiphanies Project and is currently finalizing his third book, The Kitchen Sink Approach to Cancer (And Why You SHOULDN’T Always Listen to Your Doctor). Find out more at @ chrisjoseph_author | Linktree

Chris Joseph