Just 3 weeks after my first Keytruda infusion for malignant melanoma, it was already time for my second one. It went flawlessly, and again I developed some flu-like symptoms for a couple of days followed by 7-10 days of fatigue and muscle aches.

Going Public:

The Sunday after my first infusion, I decided to go public with my cancer diagnosis. Our office has been in the middle Tennessee community since 1973. I had cared for many patients over 23 years and performed literally thousands of operations. Our office, Allergy and ENT Associates of Middle Tennessee, was telling our patients that I was out on “medical leave.” The unknown of that statement left many patients seeking more information. Over the years, I had cared for generations of families, treating them as if they were my own. I have prayed with them, shed tears of joy and sadness with them, walked them through cancer treatment, and probably given my personal cell phone number to way too many of them. I have become part of their lives. My wife, Kellee, puts up with countless phone calls and house calls all weekend long even when I am not on call. I am still on old school physician, always compelled to be a caregiver, 24/7. So, I decided to make my diagnosis public, the Sunday after my first infusion, with a social media post. The response was overwhelming! I received so many kind words and prayers of support and eventually made the decision to start this blog of my cancer journey.

A Patient Story:

I will leave you with this story of my relationship with one of my patients. It exemplifies my relationship with many of them. I have his permission to tell this story. When I went public with my diagnosis on social media, one response was from Andy Garrett, who said, “Doc, you saved my life in 2007 with skills that were God given. Prayers work and you are in mine.” Andy Garrett is a patient who turned into a close friend. Over his career in law enforcement, he worked his way all the way to the top, becoming the top ranked officer, Commander, of the large Metropolitan Nashville Davidson County Police Department Central Precinct and later becoming Chief of Police in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. He is the kind of guy, like many law enforcement officers, who would take a bullet to save a complete stranger. One day back in 2007, I was seeing Andy for a separate problem, I think related to his ears. As I was leaving the exam room, kind of an aside, he stopped me and said he had a mild sensation of a lump in his throat on the right side. Other than that, he really had no other symptoms. Many of you who have read my earlier blog posts know that something in my head compelled me to take a biopsy of my own thumb to make the diagnosis of melanoma, which I felt was providential moment from God. In Andy’s case, there was a similar feeling, and again I feel it was a providential thought from God. Some call it the art of medicine, or a physician’s gestalt. But even though he was not very symptomatic, even though I had finished documenting his office encounter, and even though I was almost out of the room, my gut, or God, said to stop what I was doing, turn around and investigate further. I took a look at his throat with a head light, and it looked normal. Next, I told him to stay put, that we were going to investigate further. My nurse of many years, Lindsay, topically decongested his nose. I performed a procedure on him called flexible fiberoptic nasolaryngoscopy, in which a flexible scope is inserted into the nose, and then slowly navigated through the nasal passageways, behind the nose, past the soft palate, to the destinations of the tongue base, epiglottis, and the larynx (or voicebox). As I looked down his throat, I saw a subtle area of his right tongue base that did not look normal, which led to a tough conversation with this handsome, athletic appearing man, always dressed impeccably in uniform. I was concerned about throat cancer. After informed consent, I arranged to take a biopsy soon thereafter in the operating room, confirming the diagnosis, which we caught much earlier than most tongue base cancers. He underwent a tough treatment protocol, including both chemotherapy and radiation therapy, but remains cancer free to this day!

Not long after my good friend and patient Andy had been given a clean bill of health (after which I have seen him for years), something else happened in my office, something so powerful that I hope you keep reading. Our office had been a provider for a Medicaid plan that eventually went bankrupt and left many medical offices, including ours, unpaid for many services rendered ( I think almost $200,000 dollars for our practice). Eventually, years later, we had written the money off our books as a loss. I guess the insurance company was liquidated, and they tried to repay some of the debt. We got a check in the mail for about $2500 that was unexpected, and had nowhere to post the money, because the accounts had long been written off. I spoke to our Administrator and to Dr. Scott Fortune, my longstanding business partner, and we decided that our staff had really been working hard at the time and to simply give the money to them. We had about 25 employees at the time, and I personally walked around putting a note on each desk, thanking each of them, and giving them each an unexpected $100 to brighten their day. While I was walking around passing out those notes, Andy Garrett showed up at our front desk unannounced, and asked if he could slip something on my personal desk, which he did and then left. I never saw him that day, but after I passed all those $100 gifts to my employees, I walked right back to my office, where there laid an envelope labeled, “Dr. Bryant.”  I opened it, and inside Andy had written me a note that said, “Thanks Doc for saving my life…. I promise I will never waste another day!” I was moved to tears! And with the note was a restaurant gift card for guess how much…$100. Sometimes in life, you get what you give!

Thank you, God, for Andy, and for all my patients who have become part of my life over the years!