John H. Clark III

A patient recounts his squamous cell carcinoma diagnosis, treatment and recovery, emphasizing self-advocacy in navigating the medical system.

It was a Friday afternoon, and I was sitting in slow-moving traffic on FM 1960 in Houston, on my way to spend the night at my stepmom’s house before heading down to Galveston the next day to attend a memorial service for my friend, Craig.

I’m sitting there and the car radio goes silent for a second or two, then the phone rings over the Bluetooth hookup. I can’t remember now if the caller I.D. came up or what, but I answered the call. On the other end, it was my new doctor awkwardly telling me that the lump I found on my inner thigh a couple weeks before was cancer.

Suddenly, the whole world sort of … stopped. Cancer? I have … cancer?

That was April 7, 2023, and what followed was an extremely long and mentally excruciating nearly two-year ordeal that involved doctor appointments, all kinds of tests, waiting on test results, more doctor appointments, a couple of surgeries, more doctors, more tests, chemo treatments and more waiting.

In the end, my treatments were successful. I have been cancer-free for one year and I’m doing great.

When I took that phone call giving me the results of my biopsy, however, I was not doing so great. As I heard those words, “carcinoma with squamous cells,” life for me changed forever in that moment. I had no idea what those words meant, but what I did know is that a word that ends in “-oma” is not good.

There I was, surrounded by cars and trucks in bumper-to-bumper traffic in the country’s fourth-largest city, and I’ve never felt more alone. Suddenly, I felt different from everyone else. Like I no longer belonged with all the “normal” people. I was defective. The only thing I could think of to do was to turn around and get back home as soon as possible, and that’s exactly what I did.

Not only was I terrified at the idea of having a potentially fatal disease, now I was also confronted with the extremely frustrating and often confusing reality of entering the medical system.

One of the first things to happen was removing — excising, I think they call it — the three-centimeter growth in my leg, which they did during an outpatient surgery. This surgeon told me during a consultation that the normal protocol was to remove the growth, along with all the lymph nodes in that leg. That sounded a little extreme to me, and I asked if that was really necessary. “No, a lot of people choose not to remove the lymph nodes, and they do just fine,” he said.

I was good to go for about six months after that and then a PET scan showed another lesion in almost the same exact place, and this time an oncologist at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center — where I went for a second opinion after receiving treatment at a local cancer center where I live in central Texas — told me he wanted to do some chemo sessions to try and shrink this new growth, and then remove it.

I agreed and instead of shrinking the tumor, subsequent scans showed it was completely gone. That was Feb. 16, 2024.

You are your best and most important advocate for your care. Doctors are trained to follow certain protocols, and you do not necessarily have to go along with whatever they say. One guy admitted to me that they tend to “overstep” as a precaution.

I called it the “just in case” treatment plan.

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Articles

A personal journey through cancer diagnosis and treatment highlights the emotional and physical challenges faced by patients. The narrative underscores the importance of patient advocacy in navigating the healthcare system, emphasizing that patients should actively participate in their treatment decisions. The experience involved initial surgery, a recurrence, and successful chemotherapy, ultimately leading to a cancer-free status. The story illustrates the complexity of medical protocols and the necessity for patients to question and understand their treatment options, as doctors may sometimes recommend extensive measures as a precaution.

A patient shares his experience with a squamous cell carcinoma diagnosis, treatment and recovery.

John H. Clark III

My Journey With Squamous Cell Carcinoma

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