SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Whew...I've been through a bit of a rough patch from this last chemo treatment. However...

My take on today's medicine is that oncologists must be one of the most dreaded doctors people have to face. That also makes them one of the most under appreciated doctors, in my opinion. These chemical wizards have the thankless job of trying to convince their patients that by putting carefully crafted poisons into their bodies they will be cured or at least have an extended quality-of-life. This is not like the old days. Patients have internet access, they come armed with questions. Many patients want to know the truth, even if they can't handle the truth. It takes a very skilled physician to assuage fears, build confidence and instill that "never give up attitude". I'm sure my oncologist could sell ice to the Eskimos or convince people to take sand to the beach. He instills confidence in me, yet is very honest assessing my situation. I'm not rushed, he spends time with me and Kathryn going over my MRI's in detail. His confidence for my recovery has allowed me to feel that I am an important part of this process, not just another object in a cattle-herd type process.

Whenever I began a new undercover investigation and met the crook for the first time, I always got an adrenaline rush. The best undercover agents I ever met were pure adrenaline junkies and I had the pleasure of knowing and sometimes working with a few great ones over my 13 years of undercover work. My personal idol and all time favorite was Willy, a graduate of Notre Dame and Yale Law. He had a wry Irish smile that could allow him to play Santa Claus 365 days a year and he was absolutely brilliant in his affable approach that appealed to people's desires. He could switch from quoting philosophers to pure debauchery without missing a heartbeat. To be honest, I don't think any crook ever stood a chance with Willy. Would anyone have ever guessed that the devil they were dealing with was the FBI? Plain and simple, it wasn't a fair fight. Willy infiltrated the infamous Japanese Yakuza, a very ruthless crime syndicate. He also successfully infiltrated the New York mob and managed a nightclub for them, for quite sometime. Adrenaline junkies do that sort of thing and thrive on it.

Every good undercover agent has his own shtick, his own bag of tricks, his certain lines, his hooks so to speak to reel in the bad guy.  I would blind a crook with a bit of "bling" and appeal to his greed. I've often thought of it as similar to a magic act...sort of a smoke and mirrors routine. I lived 24 hours a day with another identity completely different from my real life, right down to the USA passport. I morphed into that undercover person, always on alert for that accident waiting to happen, that unexpected run-in with someone that knew me as Richard and not Ralph. There was always that constant adrenaline pump going, tempered by that drink or two or three.

Undercover agents, the adrenaline junkies that we were, all suffer the same fate... withdrawal. Like any junkie, you can't stop cold turkey and not suffer withdrawal or depression as it may be. I know this is true, I saw it in Willy after he retired and I know the effect retirement had on me. That was when I really should have, bent over, reached down, grabbed a root and growled...but I didn't.

Do oncologists have their bag of smoke and mirrors, I think so, and I can appreciate that.  Even if my oncologist is telling me to bring sand to the beach, he has succeeded in his mission, by boosting my confidence that I can and will beat this disease.

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