Then:

In October 2010, I began to have pains in my left shoulder (and I'm left-handed).  I couldn't lift things, and extending my arm was impossible.  After having retired as professor and chair of the English department, I was still teaching as an adjunct, but I couldn't even lift my arm high enough to write on the board.  My partner and I were considering moving to Florida.  We'd made three trips there to look at houses and had a fourth scheduled.  In preparing to put our house up for sale, we'd done renovations, and I assumed that in moving furniture, I'd pulled a muscle.  But when the pain didn't go away, I went to my GP, who did an x-ray, saw nothing unusual, and suggested that I go for physical therapy.  He sent me to a place where his brother worked as an osteopath, but didn't take Medicare patients, while his partner, an M.D., did.  After the first session, I wasn't impressed and called several other facilities, but each said it would be about a month before anyone could see me.  Even when I said that I was in pain, the response was still the same, so I settled for the first facility.  The doctor there did an ultrasound and said I had a torn rotator cuff; for a month or so, I had a cortisone shot and went for therapy, but nothing seemed to help.  The doctor did another ultrasound and said it was bursitis, so there was more cortisone and more therapy, all with the same results: none.  Finally, in April, six months after I had first seen a doctor, he said that perhaps he was overlooking something and I should have an MRI.

I went for the MRI, not thinking that it might be anything serious.  The next day, as I was walking alone in a virtually empty corridor at my university, my cell rang.  The results were in, and the doctor was very somber: I had a tumor on the left scapula, which had been severely damaged.  Even though he said 'tumor' and 'cancer' and even though I taught my next class in a state of shock, I still thought that since there hadn't been a biopsy, the diagnosis wasn't certain.  Between then and mid-May, my GP was evidently searching for the right oncologist at KU Med Center in Kansas City.  At no time did I actually talk to my primary doctor, despite his being a friend--not a close one perhaps, but more than acquaintance.  No matter how often I called or asked to speak to the doctor, I never got beyond his nurse or scheduler.

Finally, I got to see an orthopedic oncologist at the Med Center.  A series of x-rays showed, in addition to the damage to the scapula, a quarter-sized spot where the right femur had been eaten away.  Although many friends were urging me to go to Mayo or M. D. Anderson for a second opinion, it was imperative that the femur be replaced immediately.  The oncologist was amazed that it hadn't already fractured and that I wasn't in any pain.  On the Saturday morning between the x-rays and the scheduled surgery, the oncologist called me at home with the results of the CT scans I'd also undergone.  What we had thought was bone cancer was really kidney cancer, which had metastasized to several bones.  "That's not good news," I said.  And indeed it wasn't.

Now:

Yesterday I had more energy than usual and did three loads of laundry, which involves going up and down stairs, not painful, but not smooth.  I had gone 48 hours without Imodium and without frequent trips to the john.  That qualifies as a good day.  I watched as much of the 212th Republican debate as I could stand.  What a frightening group of four is still left!  By then, however, my G-I tract had begun to rebel, and the next several hours involved several trips to the bathroom.  Still, I managed a good night's sleep.