Ed Duerr
In the first part of this five-part series, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma survivor and Raleigh, North Carolina resident, Ed Duerr reflects on his cancer journey. Listen to Ed and his daughter Keven discuss Ed's diagnosis and why he chose to travel to Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) instead of seeking cancer treatment at a local facility.
In this first segment on Ed's initial diagnosis, he says, "To me the word 'lymphoma' meant 'you're going to die.' I remember sitting in my living room thinking 'I may not be here tomorrow.' And the thought that went through my mind after that was, 'I can't leave my kids without their father.'"
Then, Ed turned to CTCA.
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Ed Duerr: I think I had this disease for three; maybe three and a half years before I was diagnosed and one of the biggest things that I noticed was my energy level was very low. I also developed a certain amount of neuropathy in my right foot and once the diagnosis came it to me was almost a relief because now I knew, “yes there is a reason for why all this stuff was happening”, and I’m not going to say that I was glad that I got the diagnosis but I was glad to finally know some of the answers. The oncologist that gave me the diagnosis I remember sitting in his office and he was looking over the, the papers and the lab work and all and he said, “Well, you have lymphoma”. And I really can’t tell you what else he said because I, I stopped listening at that point and I was just playing that one word over, and over, and over trying to understand exactly what word it was that he said. And then I asked him I said, “Lymphoma?” and he says, “Well, actually it’s weldenstroms medical angolibial anemia”. And I, I’m sorry I stopped thinking; I stopped even thinking at that point. To me the word lymphoma meant, you’re going to die, and it took me a couple of weeks to really process that word.
Keven: It was scary because it’s such a rare form.
Ed Duerr: It was the natural depression that followed the diagnosis. And there was a lot of office visits back and fourth with that oncologist, but a lot of it was just trying to come to terms with that diagnosis. And, and one other thing that he said and that was, “You have a very high risk of a heart attack or a stroke any given day. And I remember sitting in my living room and thinking “I may not be here tomorrow.” And the thought that ran through my mind immediately after that has been apart of my thinking for the past year and that is, “I can't leave my kids without their father, I can’t do that.” But, I didn’t know what to do.