This is How it Began

Dan had been having a difficult time swallowing, but mostly just scrambled eggs when he ate breakfast at Weaver Street, our local co-op and place we both loved visiting before or after going on one of our Sunday hikes through Hillsborough. He vacillated between not being concerned (after all, it didn’t happen all of the time) to being extremely concerned because he had lost a best friend of his to throat cancer only two years prior. But no, he thought, it couldn’t be possible that both he AND Greg should have throat cancer. No, it couldn’t possibly be that serious. But as time went on and food got stuck he made an appointment with his doctor at UNC Hospital. When he was in there she all but dismissed his middle aged male concerns and told him to take Prilosec regularly and he should be fine.

This was in February of 2023.

By June, the swallowing had become more difficult and he was concerned but, again, sure that there was no way it could be cancer. That’s what he told me, anyway. Looking back I think he knew, he was scared, and in his characteristic Dan way, ignored the unpleasantness.

I was surprised when he said he was going back to the doctor. He never really talked to me about his swallowing issues. He mentioned the feeling of heartburn and how he thought he had a hiatal hernia, which would explain the swallowing issues (somehow).

This time at UNC he saw a different Team PCP who, upon hearing Dan’s symptoms, immediately ordered an endoscopy. I was still under the ruse that they were looking for a hiatal hernia, and we kept assuring each other that it was nothing: nothing to worry about,