CANCER SURVIVOR THRIVES ON HOPE

It started with a lump on the left side of Dan Wheeler's neck, no bigger than a wad of gum.

At first, the usually healthy 26-year-old insurance agent thought it was from a virus.

But it didn't go away.

Then, two weeks later, he found a second lump. Dan called his doctor, who brought him in that same day and scheduled a biopsy.

"From the day that I first saw the lymph node & to the day I went in for the biopsy, it looked like I had a golf ball under the skin of my neck," Dan says. "It hurt and looked like I was trying to grow a new angry head out of the side of my neck. It was insane."

Dan, a New Haven resident with summer freckles, red hair and a sarcastic, yet friendly disposition, was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, also known as Hodgkin's lymphoma, early in the fall of 2004.

The American Cancer Society estimates that 7,880 people were diagnosed with Hodgkin's in 2004, representing just 1 percent of all cancers. It attacks the lymphatic system, the disease-fighting network that has nodes and vessels throughout your body. It is most common in young adults and older adults.

"Everyone was very surprised by the news [of the cancer diagnosis] because I don't smoke, I don't drink to

Since his diagnosis, Dan finished a grueling course of chemotherapy and is back to work. He believes his sense of humor and the support of friends and loved ones helped him navigate the pain and fear of cancer as well as the chemotherapy treatments that ravaged his body.

Sitting in a rocking chair, peering out the window of his second-floor New Haven apartment, Dan recalls the first traumatic weeks. "I was at home, recovering from the tissue biopsy when I got the call. "The partner of my surgeon called and said, 'It's cancer, but it's Hodgkin's lymphoma, and the good news is that it's really treatable.' " Unable to absorb the surgeon's attempt to comfort him, Dan burst into tears and doesn't remember the rest of the conversation.

"Whenever you hear cancer, you hear it with a capital C," Dan says.

During his lengthy treatment he lived with his then-girlfriend, Tracy Rightmer, a student at Quinnipiac Law School and part-time aide at Yale's Alzheimer's Research Clinic.

The day he got the news, knowing that Tracy was on her way home, he waited to tell her. "She was the first person I told. It was the only time she's seen me cry." Tracy came home to find Dan on the bed with the phone in his hand. She crawled into bed with him and they held each other for a half-hour after she learned of his diagnosis. 'Super powers'

Tracy and Dan had a list of questions when they first met with his oncologist, Dr. Johanna LaSala, at Medical Oncology & Hematology in Hamden.

Dan asked, "Honestly, doc, tell me what are the chances, percentage-wise, that while I'm going through radiation I'm going to develop super powers?" Dan says she laughed, then continued to explain the course of treatment.

Dan's positron emission tomography (PET) scan revealed the cancer had spread to his spleen, which made this stage four, the last stage of the disease. His treatment changed from two months of radiation followed by two months of chemotherapy to six straight months of intensive chemotherapy.

The real super powers, Dan says, came from the chemotherapy "juice." It's a mixture of powerful drugs, which, injected into the bloodstream, attack fast-growing cells. Benign fast-growing cells, including hair follicles, also die, so you lose your hair. But the cancer cells also die. The hair grows back; hopefully, the cancer won't.

Dan says he gained the "cat-like ability" to sleep 18 hours a day. And one of the chemicals was so corrosive his blood became mildly acidic. Picture the movie "Aliens," he says.

Dan underwent surgery to implant a port so he could receive the chemical cocktail through a large blood vessel in his chest and not through his arm. This reduces the amount of time for each treatment and the chances of chemical burns if he were cut.

One nurse explained skin grafts are needed if the blood isn't wiped away quickly.

"The first chemo was the worst," Dan says.

"If you're standing in the middle of the road and a car hits you, it's awful ... If the second car hits you, you've got adrenaline from the first time, so it's not so bad.

"You're instantly aging. Your body goes from working well to falling apart. Everything hurts; every joint hurts and every muscle is sore. You're totally fatigued and you're still kind of creeped out because you don't know what other kinds of things are going to happen."

Dan says he quickly tired of the two-week cycles that started with "infusions" that left him sick and hurting. Then he progressed to "almost healthy" with things like his sense of taste returning — only to have to undergo chemo again. "Nurses would ask me, 'How are you feeling today?' I'd say, 'Fine,' and think to myself, 'but you'll take care of that soon.' "

On his 26th birthday, Oct. 27, he went to the doctor with a slight cough. His nurse noticed his white blood cell count was high and asked how he felt. Dan said he felt warm. His temperature was 103.

Chest X-rays revealed he had pneumonia. He was given antibiotics and had to delay his next chemo treatment.

But Dan's birthday also brought good news. A PET scan of his bodyshowed that his cancer was inactive.

Cancer jokes

You have to be intimate with cancer to be able to joke about it, Dan says.

Charles Tirrell, close friend, recalls the day he learned of Dan's diagnosis.

"What struck me far more at first was how worried Dan sounded, because for the first couple of weeks he lost his sense of humor completely," Tirrell says. "[That really] worried me, because if there's one thing Dan is, he's a sarcastic, funny bastard."

"When I told my friend Charles about it [his cancer], he was really shaken up," Dan says. "Later, I started to make jokes about it and it threw him at first.

"I think joking made it less intimidating, less scary," Dan says. "A lot of people were able to relate to me better & I wasn't at my best but it was still me."

Both Dan and Tracy say they were stunned by the response to Dan's illness from friends, family and even people they didn't know. "Everyone was very supportive & offering rides to the doctors, offering to pick up meds," Dan says.

"There are people you know that will help you as much as they can, but then they go even beyond your expectations." Tirrell, a heavyset, red-bearded New Haven resident with a laugh like an evil Santa Claus, organized a benefit dinner for Dan in early October at their Masonic lodge in the Northford section of North Branford. Both men are Masons. Many of the people who donated money didn't even know Dan. "Charles organizing the benefit hadn't even occurred to me," Dan says. "He was the driving force behind that."

"It wasn't just for Dan," said Tirrell, a student and employee in the Science Department at Southern Connecticut State University. "It was for me, to keep my spirits up."

Tracy's help

Several weeks after Dan's last chemo treatment, he and Tracy — a cute, pale, 5-foot-nothing dirty blonde with a smoky voice — are curled up on the living room couch. They say the room belongs to their orange cats, Dogma and Fable. With peach fuzz emerging from the top of his head, Dan strokes his new blond beard. Tracy says the whole experience was, "like how you'd think it would be. It was awful, scary, horrible, painful, and yucky, all those bad things."

Tracy continues, "Well, I think we both said if we could get through this & [we could get though anything]."

Dan nods, saying, "Yeah, it certainly changed the dynamic of the relationship. Things are starting to get back to a normal relationship."

"I can't even begin to describe how stressed I was on a daily basis, with school, work, taking care of him," Tracy says. "He was a pretty good sick person," she says, nodding to him, "You really didn't complain too much." Dan responds, "I certainly tried not to complain too much, you've got enough on your plate without me." Dan is writing a memoir of his travails through lymphoma. Its working title is, "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Oncologist."

Dan thinks some of his observations could help make the process more bearable for someone going through it or a caregiver. "For an example, the bone marrow biopsy was one of the most painful things I've ever gone through, but in retrospect it makes me laugh because after it was over Dr. LaSala said, 'Are we still friends?'

"I said, 'I don't know about you, but I've never let my friends do anything like that to me.' It was all very surreal, but the memory makes me smile." Back to work

On a chilly, Feb. 28, Dan goes to work at Auto Cycle Insurance in the Amityville section of New Haven. He still doesn't have much hair on his head. The last day he was at work was early September; his first chemo was mid-September.

Dan's boss, Jean Hardy, says, "I'm very pleased to have him back. He brings a spirit ... a happy spirit."

"His energy was missed," adds co-worker Helen Borrero.

Joking with Dan, Jean warns that her husband, Peter, might stop by" and sign his head.

Peter had cancer and convinced others in the hospital that when you get cancer and lose your hair, you should have your head signed like when you have a cast.

Cancer casualty

Dan's future health is uncertain. The good news is that 85 percent of people who receive initial treatment for Hodgkins experience long-term remission. The overall survival rate after 15 years is almost 70 percent.

"All I know is I have follow-up appointments for the next 10 years and that means my doctor is going to watch me grow up."

Being a survivor of cancer, Dan says, "I'll be much more likely to actually see a doctor when I get sick now rather than waiting for my illness to clear itself up.

After a PET scan review in earlier this month. Dan learned he's still in the clear. Waiting for the results to get back to him can be tough.

"It's kind of like having a real long knot in your stomach," he says. "It's a hard lesson to learn, that you're not going to live forever. "I can't donate my blood or organs. This is sad for me. I wanted to be able to give life if I was in an accident, but I can't any longer."

Another more serious casualty of cancer was Dan's relationship with Tracy. Sitting in his living room with only one cat on the couch, he looks up at the walls. "This place is going to look so empty."

Dan blames the breakup on the time they spent in the patient-nurse relationship.

They just couldn't get back to the way things were before his illness, he says.

They still talk nearly every day, but for now they're just good friends.

Whether or not there is still a possibility of a close relationship with Tracy, Dan is ready to get on with his life. "I certainly feel like I can take anything on. It also helped put other stresses of life in perspective," Dan says. "I can just sit back and consider myself lucky, and able to survive either side of the flip of a coin."