David McElroy

By the time most of you read this, I should be in surgery or maybe even finished with it. I’m scheduled to be at the hospital by 6 a.m., so many people will still be asleep. I wish this were a day for me to be asleep in my own bed instead of “sleeping” from anesthesia.

Let me bring you up to date on where things stand. As you might know, I was diagnosed with breast cancer slightly more than two weeks ago. A week later, tests of additional samples led the doctor to back off a bit, saying that he could now only say that there were “atypical” cells. The lump in my chest might be cancer, but it might not be.

I won’t know until I wake up after the surgery what was done to me or what they found. Here’s the plan. They’re first going to remove the lump. While I’m still knocked out, it will be sent to the hospital lab for testing. If the people in the lab can determine that it’s definitely cancer, the surgery will resume and they’ll remove all of the breast tissue from the left side of my chest, possibly even lymph nodes, depending on what they find. If the lab can’t definitely say the cells in the lump are cancer — if the cells just appear “atypical” again — the surgeon won’t do anything else today. Obviously, the second is the one I’m hoping for.

If the cells are cancerous and they have to do the major surgery — a “modified radical mastectomy” — I’ll be in the hospital for at least one night. If they don’t have to do that, there’s a good chance I’ll be home Monday night. Either way, I’ve been told not to expect to do much this week.

Honestly, I’m expecting the less-serious outcome, so I’m expecting to be home Monday night. I got one piece of very hopeful news Friday when I went in for a CT scan. (That’s the scanner above.) The technician operating it told me that the lump didn’t appear to be connected to anything else. She said that’s a good sign that whatever is going on in it hasn’t spread elsewhere. She’s not a doctor, so she could be wrong, but it’s a hopeful sign.

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If medical marijuana is legalized in Alabama anytime soon, we should thank a woman who died of breast cancer 25 years ago. Years later, her brother is a Republican state legislator, and he’s trying to legalize medical marijuana because of what he saw her go through.

State Rep. K.L. Brown is no stranger to death, because he owns and operates a funeral home. But it must have been very different to watch his own sister die of cancer 25 years ago. His sister used marijuana to ease her suffering, and Brown wants to change the law so that anyone can do the same without fear of legal problems.

Brown isn’t some libertine — or even a libertarian. He’s just a conservative Republican who doesn’t believe people should have to suffer unnecessary pain.

Ron Crumpton is executive director of the Alabama Medical Marijuana Coalition, and he told the Anniston Star that this is the first time he’s believed a medical marijuana bill has a chance of passing in the state.

“I’ve talked to a lot of legislators who, quite honestly, in the past have not been for us but who are backing us now,” said Crumpton. “I think it has a lot to do with the fact that K.L. Brown is sponsoring it. He’s well-liked.”

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Every person has reached a point in his life when he wanted something very badly, but he was discouraged and ready to quit. We’ve all had things we strongly desired, but we’ve all failed in reaching some of those goals. When you’re faced with the choice between continuing to fight a “hopeless” battle or allowing yourself the relief of giving up, how do you choose?

The answer might be different for every person, so I can only tell you mine. I’ve learned over the years that I’ve been too quick to give up and take the easy way out, because I was afraid or I didn’t want to pay the price that might be required to continue fighting or I simply preferred the certainty of quitting to the uncertainty of continuing the fight. When I look back on big things I’ve wanted, I’m not satisfied with any of my decisions to quit.

When I was 28 years old, I started a small community newspaper in an affluent suburb of Birmingham. I thought I was prepared for the battle of a startup when I launched the paper, and I did work hard. But I went through one disaster after another. The people I hired to sell ads couldn’t sell enough, but I made very few sales calls myself, because I was more concerned with producing the product. The source of our working capital disappeared about six months into the project and I couldn’t figure out how to get additional revenue or new investment.

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