Part 19
"Doctor Froines"

The date was set. November 10th was my big day. The chemotherapy was done. The last thing I had to do was meet the man who would be ripping me apart, literally. This mans name was Dr. Eric Froines. He was one of the best surgeons in the country for my particular kind of tumor, and he worked at Group Health in Seattle. My mother and I drove up to Seattle around the end of October to meet “the man”, and discuss the final stages of my cancer experience.

After getting lost in the much bigger Seattle Group Health building, we finally found the reception desk where we were supposed to check in at. After checking in with the receptionist, we took our seat in the waiting room. After about tem minutes of reading “Sports Illustrated” and “The Home & Garden Magazine”, the nurse came into the room and told us to follow her. We did and she brought us to a small room where Dr. Froines was going to be talking with us at. We waited for a few more minutes. Finally the door opened and in walked Dr. Froines. He was not an old man, I say he was in his late 30’s. I can only describe his appearance by comparing him to Nils for the TV show “Frazier”. Except unlike Nils, who is a chipper little psychologist that makes jokes here and there, Dr. Froines kept a very solemn look to his face. He didn’t smile and didn’t talk with a lot of excitement or enthusiasm in his voice. He greeted me and asked how I was feeling. I told him “fine” and he proceeded to take some tests on me. The usual stuff; listen to my lungs, tap my chest, and “look at the cutting board”. After these minor checks were made we began to discuss the format of my surgery.

As you know, my surgery was scheduled for November 10th. It was going to be performed at around 9:00am at Virginia Mason (in Seattle). That meant that I had to get there at around 7:00am. You also know that my particular type of tumor is called a “Germ Cell Tumor”, it was the size of a grapefruit, and it was located in my chest. Dr. Froines told us that he does these types of surgeries only about twice a year, because they are so rare. The doctors knew a lot about my tumor. They knew what type it was. They knew what my cancer count was. They knew where it was located and its approximate size. The one thing that they couldn’t tell me was what it was connected to. Now you can imagine that it could be connected to all sorts of stuff, since it was located in a region where a lot of organs are. There is a main artery (I don’t know its name) that goes down the middle of your chest. The possibility was there that my tumor would be connected to it. In that case, Dr. Foines would have to cut out the tumor and whatever piece of the artery it was connected to. He would then have to remove a big piece of vein from my leg and stick it in the hole he just cut. There was a possibility that the tumor would be connected to my lung. In this case, he would have to remove the tumor and the lung it was connected to. I could survive with only one lung, but you could imagine what it would do to my saxophone playing. My mother told him I was a musician and believed in God that it would not be connected to my lung. We also asked him, while we were on the subject, if we could have music playing in the background. He said this would be fine, and told me to bring whatever CD I wanted to be played in the surgery room (preferably not too loud). The tumor also had a possibility to be connected to my heart. Obviously he couldn’t remove my heart, so the only option would be to remove whatever he could of the tumor, and leave the rest of it still lodged in my heart. This was the worst scenario.

After he explained all of the possibilities, it was now time for “Questions & Answers”. Of course, my mom had more questions for him that a game of “Jeopardy”. He answered all of them the best he could. Frankly, I forget everything my mom asked. After several questions she looked at me and asked, “don’t you have any questions Cliff?” Now of course, I had all kinds of questions running through my head. I had questions on life. Questions on death. Questions for God, asking him the question "why?” But I didn’t have any questions for Dr. Froines except for; “I have a gig on December 4th up in Seattle. Will I still be able to play for that?” Spoken like a true musician! Never miss a gig, no matter what. He said that I would probably be pretty sore. It would depend how my lung(s) were doing. That’s all I needed to know. Nothing was left for us but to go home and begin counting the days. And believe me, you do count the days. We drove home and my mom explained “the plan” to family and friends. Judgement day was coming.

NEXT