Rick Lennox, Stage IV

Date of Diagnosis: 03/03/2020

I’ve had a walnut-sized tumor pulled out of my brain, back in March of 2020. so that’s when the stage 4 thing began. as far as all the MRIs and PET scans I’ve taken since then – that’s pretty much where it ended. so far. I’m not on any treatments or on any immunology drugs. It just so happens that my melanoma was preceded by twenty years, by a Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis. Doc thinks my immune system’s too off the hook, to risk reinforcing it with designer drugs – to fight the cancer. I’m thinking, there must be quite a battle going on in there – worthy of a pay-per-view, 🙂 yet, with all that going on, my biggest complaint is my spinal stenosis and synovial cyst that has me limping around. I figured if I was alive after a year, I’d look into getting that fixed. So now that I’m 65, and still working full-time as a mainframe computer geek, I’m thinking I’d like to take one last nice vacation with my wife but hey.. you never know.. I may have a lot more time than the statistics say. Either way… I’m alive now and want to enjoy it as much as possible.

I wish I had something inspirational to say. I think I’m very lucky. I mean… I’m fat… I smoke… I drink, but I keep my head down and plow through. Just finished tiling a floor – even if I did most of it from my butt. I guess that’s the only advice I can give to anyone who finds themselves here, reading these stories. Don’t give up.. you’re tougher than you think. unless your disease is tapping you on the shoulder at every turn, forget about it. Especially, you young people! Nothing’s a death sentence if you’re too stubborn to concede.

I wish you all the best. I really do.

by the way… I colored a still image from the MRI of my little brain fart – and included it here. I was thinking it might make a good t-shirt to wear around town, but my wife killed that idea. Thank God for her! hahaha

Rick Lennox
Age 65
Middletown, New Jersey