Editor’s note: Southern Lakes Newspapers correspondent Mike Ramczyk – who in recent weeks has undergone cancer surgery and started chemotherapy while simultaneously helping his wife tend to a newborn son who was born prematurely last month and remains hospitalized – shares the following update in his family’s story:
First and foremost, I just wanted to say thank you for the positive response from my cancer/baby Roman column that ran on the front page of the Standard Press July 25.
Believe me, it was super hard to write, as divulging tons of personal information can be a bit much and also violates the typical third-person approach of journalism.
How many times can you use first person and get away with it, right?
Well, with the tennis and golf seasons still in nonconference mode, and football teams still playing games that don’t affect your ability to make the playoffs, I figure I have one more opportunity before the fall sports season really takes off to let you know what’s going on with our unbelievable family story.
A lot has happened in a month.
Baby Roman is making progress, but he is still at the NICU in West Allis. Mom has been traveling the 90-minute round trip every day, and I have been joining as much as possible, in between my medical appointments and entertaining my 5-year-old daughter Coraline.
At times, I wish I could do more, be there more often, but grandma Mimi (Erin’s mom) has certainly helped out and been by Roman’s side just about every day.
Our patience is being tested. For every “good” feeding, where Roman takes more than half or 60 percent of his feeding via the bottle, there is a “bad” feeding where he reverts back to maybe 30 or 40 percent of his feeding, because he simply gets too tired.
So our hopes are ballooned, and by the way, his all-time high for milliliters in one feeding is in the high 60s, a mark he’s now hit several times in the last week or so, but then we are shot back down to reality.
Still in the hospital
Roman isn’t home. We don’t know when he’s coming home. We don’t know why this is all happening.
It’s very frustrating, like ramming your head against a wall over and over and expecting different results. Actually, it’s going to hurt, every time.
The marathon is going on for more than a month now, and Aug. 20 was his original due date, normally a benchmark where next steps can be determined.
Roman will get through this eventually, we know it, we just have to keep the faith and do our best to help him on this journey.
Again, thanks to those of you from the community who have reached out and offered support.
We appreciate every kind gesture. It helps us get through this and stay positive, something that isn’t always easy.
Next stop, chemo
About a week after my July 18 surgery, I got a phone call I will never forget.
I was rushing to get into the car and join my dad, as we were going to drive to Franksville to get Roman’s baby seat professionally installed.
I knew pathology results were coming, and I was hopeful I wouldn’t need chemotherapy, something I still intensely fear.
I got the call from my surgeon’s nurse practitioner, and not even her young, sweet voice could mask the impact of that “other” C-word, chemo.
If hearing a doctor say cancer wasn’t enough, the fun has just begun, as I need chemo for six months, starting Monday, and this journey will continue.
Nicole revealed they took out 25 lymph nodes from my body, the main ones that fed the tumor and colon, and cancer was detected in four nodes, immediately indicating Stage 3 colon cancer and necessary chemotherapy.
I couldn’t hold back, bawling my eyes out on the phone. After I hung up, I braced myself into the passenger seat of the car and held my dad’s arm firmly. “I need chemo,” I sobbed to him in a messy heap.
Then, I called Erin and relayed the message, still drowning in tears, fearing the end of the world.
How do you prepare yourself for something like that, especially when the surgery was supposed to be curative? I thought it was all over, and I could go back to normal life.
That turned into meeting two oncologists, and choosing to stick with Froedtert, the place where I had a wonderful surgery experience.
Last week has been littered with a surgery to place a port in my chest, chemo counseling and my first of 12 treatments on Monday, Aug. 26.
I get to take my pump and port home for two straight days, turn it back in on the third day, and then be “off” for 11 days before rinsing, washing and repeating two weeks later, for a total of six months.
Seeking support
There is a light at the end of this tunnel.
It may not come tomorrow, next week or next month.
But it’s coming.
Maybe it will take six months or an entire year.
This isn’t our year, but I really, truly believe good news, a lot of it, is on its way.
We are strong, we are surviving this and we will keep living our lives to the fullest.
Again, a resounding THANK YOU for all the support and well wishes.
We love you, we will pray for you, and ask you to pray for us.
We will do this, together.
To read the full version of this column, see the Aug. 22 edition of the Burlington Standard Press.
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