The Big Announcement

For the last several months, the blog has been eerily quiet.  Much of that time has been spent working on a project.  That project has now been completed and I am thrilled to announce the publication of my memoir, Half the Man I Used to Be: My Yearlong Journey to Stronger Faith and Better Health.  Many of you have followed my health concerns over the past eighteen months and this book recounts my struggle to overcome my declining health and my pursuit to live a healthier, and consequently happier, life.   I have faced the challenges of being severely overweight and I have overcome those challenges by placing them in the hands of a loving, caring Father.  If you face the same challenges, don’t be afraid and don’t give in to defeat.  You can overcome.  If was able to do this, then surely anybody can.  And the best part is that you don’t have to do it alone.  Let go and let God.  I used to think those were just words to make people feel better, but they can be so much more if you let them.  

 For now, the book is only available on the publisher’s website, iUniverse.  If anyone is interested in a copy, you can access the book in paperback, hardcover, or ebook at the following website: http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000648807/Half-the-Man-I-Used-to-Be.aspx.  The book should be available at places like Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and other retailers within the next 4-6 weeks.  As a preview, I have included an excerpt from the first chapter on the blog.  Hope you enjoy and please share with all your friends and family.    

Chapter 1

The Man-Mogram

Randy Travis sang in the classic country song “1982,” “They say hindsight’s 20/20 but I’m nearly going blind.”  When you think about it, that makes a lot of sense.  Looking back on things, we can see them clearly but often if it is unpleasant, we choose to still not see it for what it is.  Most of us have been through something we would rather not look back on with the clarity that time and distance give us so we choose to remember it the way that makes us feel the most comfortable.  This, of course, is usually not a great idea.

            My eye-opener came in the spring of 2012, and looking back, I should have recognized it for that instead of treating it as no big deal.  I am usually pretty good at dealing with things and accepting difficulties that life throws my way.  But we all have times when, in retrospect, we would have done things differently.  I believe the Lord was trying to tell me something that spring, but I chose to look at it blindly instead of realistically, and several months later my whole world almost came crashing down on me.  It went a little something like this.

            One day when I was coming home from educating the youth at the juvenile detention facility where I teach, I noticed the seatbelt was rubbing across my right nipple and it was rather painful.  I thought maybe one of my three rambunctious kids had hit me there by accident and left a bruise in that sensitive area.  When I got home and started feeling around, I discovered a knot right under the skin by the nipple.  Needless to say, I freaked out.  The knot wasn’t excruciating but it was painful and uncomfortable to touch.  So I did what any guy who loves and respects his wife utterly and completely would do: I didn’t tell her about it for nearly a month.  I figured it would clear up sooner or later.

            Naturally, it didn’t happen that way and eventually I broke down and told my wife, Kristy, what was happening.  By this time I was really starting to get paranoid.  There was so much in the news about men getting breast cancer and I was greatly concerned.  I did not have a doctor at the time; the one I had been seeing was no longer in private practice.  Kristy called her doctor to get me an appointment … but they could not see me until October.  She went ahead and made the appointment so I could get in with her doctor, but my lumpy nipple hurt, and I wasn’t going to wait almost six months to get it checked out.  That’s when things began to get weird.

            Kristy has a friend who is a gynecologist, and she called to ask his opinion about what I needed to do.  He told her, “Tell Brian to come by the office tomorrow, and I’ll check him out.  Tell him to tell the receptionist that he is here to see me, and that I know what it’s about.”  I know what you’re thinking, because I was thinking the same thing: How can this NOT go wrong?  It had disaster written all over it.

            I showed up at his office the following day, and to say I was hesitant about stepping inside the doors would be an understatement akin to saying the Titanic had a slight mishap in the Atlantic Ocean.  I was completely and utterly freaked out and my mind was not put at ease when I entered the waiting room.  I looked around and there were at least half a dozen elderly ladies waiting patiently to be seen by the doctor.  I walked up to the receptionist and said, “I’m Brian Gross.  I’m here to see the doctor.  He knows what it’s about.”  She looked at me, clearly puzzled, but then said, “OK.”  I wondered how many other guys had come in and said the same thing.  Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long before the good doctor came to get me because one can only stare at a floor for so long. 

            Unfortunately, being ushered back to the exam room did nothing to allay the hurricane of nerves I had swirling in my stomach.  The doctor grabbed me by the elbow and almost started running down the hallway.  I had the impression he really didn’t want anyone to see him with me.  The whole time he was muttering something incomprehensible to himself before saying, “Come on.”  When he finally got me into an exam room, he decided it was not the right place, and we then went in search of another room and found one: a storage room/broom closet.  Actually, it had been an examination room at one time but was now the catch-all for things that weren’t currently being used.  Before rushing out of the room, he looked at me and said, “Take your shirt off.”    When he was in the hall, I overheard him tell a nurse, “There’s a man in this room.  Don’t let anyone else go in there.” 

            The wait seemed to last forever and it was pretty cold in the room.  It struck me as a little strange that he had instructed no one to come into the room, but it also helped to calm my nerves for a few minutes as I stared at myself in the large mirror that was directly across from the chair in which I was sitting.  There are many thoughts that rush through the mind of a nearly 400-pound, topless man as he sits in solitude, ogling himself in a large mirror.  One of those thoughts was, I’m glad he told the nurse to not let anyone come in here. 

            Of course, someone didn’t get the memo, and the look on the poor lady’s face when she walked into the supply room and saw me sitting there bare-chested was beyond compare.  I guarantee that a very large, half-naked man was the last thing she was expecting to see at work that day.  She didn’t know what to say and neither did I, so we just looked at each other for a few seconds, and then she mumbled something, grabbed what she was looking for and made a beeline for the door.  I was wishing I could do the same thing.  As she closed the door, I could hear her as she asked someone, “What is that man doing here?”  The nurse who epically failed to keep anyone out replied, “He’s here to see the doctor.  No one was supposed to go in there.”

            From that point on I was taking no chances.  I put my shirt back on while the storm in the pit of my stomach continued to rage.  Shortly thereafter the doctor came back in and looked at me with an odd expression.  He said, “I thought I told you to take your shirt off.”  Then he thought for a second and followed that up with, “Oh, yeah … the nurse.  OK, just pull your shirt up.”  He felt around my right breast for a few minutes, found the nodule, and asked some cursory questions.  Upon completing the examination, he said, “I’m pretty sure the lump isn’t serious.  Losing weight will probably take care of it.”  I couldn’t keep myself from thinking, I’ve dodged another bullet.  I was abruptly brought out of my reverie, however, when he went on to tell me, “But just to make sure I want to get that checked out at the imaging center.  Let’s go up to the front desk so we can get you an appointment for a mammogram.”

            My mind started racing, and I wasn’t so sure I heard him correctly.  He assured me it was only to confirm the lump was what he thought it was and not something significant.  He paraded me up to the receptionist I had spoken to earlier, and he said loud enough for the people in the building across the street to hear, “Call imaging and get this man scheduled for a mammogram.”  OK, so his volume was not quite that loud, but he was no longer acting as if this were some kind of clandestine mission, perhaps because the cover had been blown by the unsuspecting nurse. 

            As I was leaving the office, relief washed over me.  I was glad to be getting out of that bizarre situation, and I was hanging onto the fact that he was reasonably sure it was nothing serious.  I was a little freaked out by needing to have a mammogram, but the whole situation was beginning to get funnier.  Being the self-deprecating soul I am, I couldn’t help but wonder to myself, When a man has a mammogram, is the proper term for it a man-mogram?  The thought made me chuckle at the humiliation I had just subjected myself to and made me wonder what would be in store for me when I actually had my man-mogram.