Lucky

“Design and construct a solution that will allow a light bulb to be safely dropped from four floors above the ground.” That was my first assignment that I was given as freshman at Ball State in the architecture Design Studio class. In addition to building a solution that would prevent the light bulb from getting damaged in the drop, we were also asked to create a solution that was representative of ourselves and that made both the launch and flight interesting to spectators. And, there would be spectators. The launch would happen from within the open atrium in the architecture building - with all the students and staff of the entire 5-year program watching. The project would not be graded, but clearly it would be evaluated. This was the right of passage for all the new architecture students.

I quickly learned that nearly all of my new classmates were cut from the same mold. They were all overachievers. Determined. Creative. Perfectionists. We had four days to build our solution. As one of the top three architecture programs in the country, we all knew that being accepted into the program also came with sacrifice. All-nighters were just part of what it took to create something special. And, so we all worked - literally day and night - in perfecting our solutions. We each approached it a little differently. I went with what I knew: A basic rocket-type design, with a parachute that deployed. I tried to get all artsy and symbolic in my design - trying to make it look like it was made of small brick that was breaking down. It was supposed to represent both my security and confidence of being more than three hours away from home at college and also my crack of vulnerability and uncertainty that I felt in this new chapter of my life. The design was supposed to represent my own launch - my leap into adulthood. I was trying to say I was both ready for the launch and scared at the same time.

My launching mechanism was just plain goofy and lame. It was really nothing more than a board that I designed to mount on the railing. The board basically balanced on the edge like a seesaw. On one end of the board sat my rocket, ready to drop. On the other end was its counterweight, just some mechanical little toy monster that moved or walked when it heard noise. My plan was pretty simple: I would get the crowd to clap and cheer - which would get my monster to walk towards the rocket, shifting the balance to cause both the rocket and the monster to fall. The monster would be tied off to keep him from dropping, the rocket would drop, with a simple rip cord of sorts that caused the parachute to deploy and cause my rocket to drift slowly to the ground with my light bulb safely tucked inside.

The design itself really didn’t take too long to build. But, I only got a few hours of sleep the entire four days because I was spending so much time trying to make my bricks look real. I was pretty proud of my work until I started to see other students’ work. Very few went with a silly looking rocket and parachute. They had fantastic looking designs that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. One design had the light bulb tucked inside a giant transparent sphere - with neon lights causing the light bulb to glow on the inside like some sort of heart of an alien.

All the students worked tirelessly on their designs - again with very few of us getting sleep for four days. That is, everyone except one student, who I will call Larry. Larry didn’t work on his project at all. For four days and nights his studio desk sat empty. Larry would come in each night to talk with us, but he literally didn’t work on his project for a minute. We would ask him what his plan was and he would simply say that he would figure out something. As each day and hour passed, we all started to squirm with unease thinking of being in Larry’s shoes. What would he do when the final moment came for him to launch his solution in the crowd of spectators - with not just all the students, but all the professors staring?! But Larry didn’t seem to worry.

The launch day finally came. All of us were still gathered in the studio room making final touches and inspections on our capsules that would be carrying their precious cargo, a simple light bulb, with eager spectators looking on. About an hour before the launch, Larry came into the studio, still with absolutely nothing done. By this point, we all assumed he just would not participate. But, Larry, started to walk around the studio grabbing scraps of newspapers, cardboard, plastic, and waste from other projects that were lying on the floor as trash. He basically just shoved the loose items together in a ball, with duct tape somehow holding things together. He stuck the light bulb in the center of the amoeba and used some more tape to hold the bulb in place. His “design” literally looked like a pile of trash.

When we carried our contraptions to the location of the launch, I was both nervous for my own launch, but also nervous for the reaction that Larry was about to receive. One-by-one, we stood on the ledge with the students and staff cheering us on. The loudness of cheers corresponded with how impressed the crowd was with what they had just witnessed. My rocket dropped from the edge after the movement of my mechanical monster. It did what it was supposed to do. It dropped safely, slowly, predictably. The crowd gave my four-day project a courteous applause. From where everyone was standing, not a single person would have been able to even see any of the artwork that I had labored over. In the end, it was just a rocket with a parachute floating to the ground. The student that had the sphere with the neon center got some loud cheers, not just because of its glowy center, but because it bounced and rolled after striking the ground, but held the light bulb safely inside.

Then Larry’s turn came. He had found some giant elastic strap in the studio, which he duct-taped to the ledge. He walked up to the ledge with his ball of trash. I could barely even watch as the crowd sort of looked on with bewilderment as he squeezed his rubble inside the elastic strap. But, giving him the benefit of the doubt, the crowd gave him the cue for his launch, just like they had for others before him, chanting - “Three! Two! One! Blast Off!

Larry pulled back on the elastic strap like he was about to launch a water balloon through the glass windows across from our launch position. With his ball of trash wedged inside, he stretched it as far as he could and then released it. His ball of trash shot a good 15 feet from the ledge like a rock flying from a slingshot - arching through the air. Immediately, the crowd roared! The ball of trash tightened and began plummeting to the ground - like a boulder falling from the sky. It fell about 1 flight, and then the old newspapers and trashbags spread outward - giving both new shape and new flight to the object in motion. Like an elite Air Force fighter plane doing aerial stunts, the ball of trash pulled out of its downward spiral and turned upward, like it was going to do a loop in the air, but then paused, and continued downward again. I found myself also screaming “Woah” with the crowd watching this amazing maneuver in flight. Again, the ball of trash contracted and started falling quickly to the ground, but when it was only about 15 feet from smashing into the ground, it puffed out, like a jellyfish, and somehow, miraculously began floating gracefully downward like a feather - easing left and right, until it peacefully gripped the floor with the gentleness of a baby being placed in a cradle.

The entire building erupted with cheers and thunderous applause! I too was applauding, cheering, and laughing. It was simply spectacular - by far the very best launch that would happen the entire day - perhaps in the entire history of this long tradition. Larry’s design was legendary!

Larry had no idea that his last minute concoction would pull off the stunts that it did. In fact, we tried to replicate the spectacle later, but we or he couldn’t repeat the amazing flight we all witnessed - no matter how much some of us wanted to see it again. That week he didn’t meticulously plan for a perfect execution. He truly just made up the whole thing at the last minute.

Larry simply got lucky.

I learned a few valuable life lessons that day:

1. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.
2. Sometimes even a ball of trash can be beautiful.


June 14, 2018 was the date of my diagnosis of cat sores. Shortly after that date, I learned it had spread to other parts of my body - a lesion on my neck and chin also tested positive for the same form of cat sores, so it became categorized as a metastatic adenocarcinoma, stage 4. I had never heard of a stage 5 cancer, so I knew the seriousness of the situation. But, I avoided asking the question that ran through my head: “How much time do I have left?” Even though I have spent a considerable amount of time reading about my disease and my options, I purposefully avoided that particular stat. However, somewhat recently after I was told that my immunotherapy treatment didn’t appear to be working, I started looking up my odds. I also finally came out and asked my oncologist. His first response was a question back: “Do you really want to know?” Reluctantly, I assured him that I did. My oncologist sympathetically explained that the average untreated survival of metastatic gastric cancer is 4-6 months after the diagnosis. Left untreated, my odds of living more than a couple years would have been 0%. He also explained that the average treated survival period wasn’t a lot better - about 12 months. The five-year survival rate for treated patients was about 4 percent. Neither option felt very promising.

I tried not to focus on the statistics of the past, but instead focus on my present. And, yet, those statistics kept creeping back into my head. At night especially, I often felt like there was a ticking bomb inside me… No, that’s not quite accurate… That would be immediate, which candidly would be a more comforting perspective. I felt like there was a predator that had found its way inside my gut. I imagined it steadily chewing through me - little by little - wanting to leave my suffering in full display for those that love me most. The images of seeing past cancer patients’ bodies deteriorate - people that I knew and loved - was haunting me. I both hated the thought of going through it myself, but I also would do just about anything to not have my girls have to see me that way.

None of this felt fair - not just to me - but to my family. I thought my girls deserved better. They should not have to go through something like this at a time in their lives when they should be stressing over what the correct answer is on their math quiz, or deciding what jeans to wear to school, or hoping they get a good seating assignment on the bus.

In my moments of sorrow and self-pity, I want to scream, how could we be so unlucky?

But, then I looked at all the blessings I’ve already been given, that my entire family has been given, and I realized that we’re still among the lucky ones. Through no action or choices of my own, I was born into a great family - with loving parents and wonderful siblings. I grew up in a nice town with a great school with caring teachers and was surrounded by amazing people who I am proud to still call friends. I was lucky to get a good education, go to college, meet more fabulous friends, and land my first job as a math teacher in Monticello, Indiana. I was lucky that Tonya taught in the classroom adjacent to mine. I was lucky that she wanted to read the New York Times each Sunday, so she drove to West Lafayette, where I lived at the time, each Sunday morning to get her paper. I was lucky that she was willing to join me for breakfast during those trips and willing to discuss everything from the headlines in the news that day to the struggles of getting students to care as new teachers. I was lucky that our friendship continued to grow until we became more than friends, got married, and had two kids. I was lucky that both kids were born healthy and continued to grow with curiosity and kindness and ultimately taught me more than I could ever teach them. And, through it all, I was lucky to find myself in different jobs and life situations - causing me to be surrounded by great people that are there to laugh with me and cry with me. I’ve been lucky to have so many people thinking and praying for my family and me through this all. And because of that strength from others and God, I tried to focus on what I had been given, rather than what I was about to lose. And somehow, in doing that, I again realized that the girls and I were still lucky.

Around the same time, almost miraculously, my prognosis shifted for the better! I went in for an outpatient surgery - where they laparoscopically went into my abdomen area to remove one of my lymph nodes and to get more tissue of the cat sores that appeared to be growing on the outside of my stomach. But, here’s the thing… The surgeon was not able to see enough cat sores on the outside of my stomach to get a sample, and the lymph node that he did remove showed up benign!! The news was huge - because it gave more hope that immunotherapy may be in fact working!! Once again, I was lucky.

I often think about how the events have unfolded which could ultimately be the difference of whether I beat this or not (or even whether or not I’m given more time). My wife’s sister worked for Dr. Rex, a world-renowned gastorists at IU Health University Hospital. Dr. Rex not only provided my diagnosis, but referred me to Dr. Paul Helft, my oncologist, who also is among the best. Dr. Helft had closely followed some of the breakthroughs in cancer treatment, including immunotherapy, which is a treatment that tries to jump start your own immune system into fighting off cancer. Because it was/is still a relatively new treatment, my insurance and most insurances wouldn’t cover it. But after several different appeals, I had a turning point when Dr. Helft remained persistent and was able to talk with an oncologist at the insurance company. Miraculously, it was then approved.

There are so many ways this story may still end, but I know this… Had I not been treated with immunotherapy, I would not still be telling this story. And, my luck isn’t just built on knowing my wife, whose sister knew the right doctor, who was willing to argue with my insurance company. It’s built on all the patients that came before me that were willing to use immunotherapy as an experimental drug. My luck is because there are doctors, scientists, and research specialists that refused to accept that chemo and radiation alone were sufficient. Despite being told it was impossible, they continued to believe there was a way to treat cancer by triggering our own immune system to attack it. I am lucky that my diagnosis happened now, rather than three years earlier.

So, indeed, sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

Regardless of what happens next, one lesson that I want my girls to learn from this experience is to always be grateful and thankful for their blessings. I hope they not only recognize and appreciate their luck, I hope they are sympathetic and empathetic to others that have not benefited from the same luck. Life is not just about savoring your own joy; it’s also about giving back.

And on the days and moments that they don’t feel lucky, I want them to ask themselves the same question that my dad challenged me to ask myself over and over - anytime I felt life was unfair or when I was just upset about a situation. In a tough, but supportive voice he would simply ask, “What are you going to do about it?” This was his question he would ask me when I was upset about losing a game, hurt by a conflict with a friend, angry with a high school bully as a kid riding the bus, tired and defeated in a job, bed-ridden after a snow-skiing accident, or heartbroken seeing Paul, my nephew, battle (and ultimately succumb) to a brain tumor. He was sympathetic to my emotions - at least most of the time - but he also understood that it was ultimately my actions that mattered most. In the end, whether we feel lucky or unlucky with our life’s circumstances, it’s what we DO about it that matters most. As the saying goes, it’s not about how many times you get knocked down. It’s about how many times you are willing to get back up.

And, so if my luck changes for the worst, I hope my girls will find a way to move forward - to continue to be happy, kind, driven girls. I want them to help Tonya, to help others, and to grow to be thoughtful women that make their mark on the world. Even if they have to face the ugliness of the disease and see and smell the garbage that comes with it, I hope they somehow find a way to learn from it, grow from it, and to emerge from it - and like Larry, somehow make something beautiful from this trash.

And, if they can do that, I know they too will live a lucky life.