The entire family spent the long, grueling time in the waiting room. My wife and children alternately sat and paced, wrapped up in their own thoughts. Hovering over them was the possibility of never seeing me alive again. My wife was very positive, however, and kept repeating that I just had to make it.

Annette later said, “I don’t think I will ever forget in my whole life the call we got to come down to the surgery floor. The surgery was over. The surgeon wanted to talk to us. At the same time my heart started pounding, and I was panicked, because I didn’t know what he was going to tell us. He was either going to tell me that Dick had made it, or that it was the end. We had to go into a waiting room. Everyone was quiet. I never stopped pacing or praying. I was like an animal in a cage. I had my fingers crossed. We had to wait for the surgeon. It seemed forever, but it was maybe ten minutes. When he walked into the room, I really think my heart stopped.

“Time literally stood still. Everyone was afraid to breathe a word. I walked up to him, and he stood there, suddenly with a smile, and said, ‘Why are you looking so unhappy? Everything is fine.’ My head started spinning. We couldn’t believe it. He sat down and told us everything.”

He had removed the top lobe of the right lung, two ribs and part of a third, and certain nerves in my right shoulder. He told them the tumor had shrunk so much that he had been able to remove every trace of it. The unusual thing was that the biopsy, after removal, showed no sign of any living malignant cells. Everyone cried from happiness, and my wife took everyone out for dinner to celebrate.

When I finally awoke the next morning, I knew all was well, because I saw that everyone was smiling. The surgeon explained that two tubes in my side connected to a pump were for drainage. He further explained that the nerves that he had removed from my shoulder would prevent my side from perspiring and would also make me unable to play tennis. With that statement, I looked him straight in the eye and said, “Oh yes, I will play tennis again.” At any rate, it would have been a small price to pay to have gotten rid of the cancer.

My recovery started very normally. I had to do long, tiring lung exercises each day. They explained that pain would impede my recovery, and I was given pain pills regularly. After a few days, I was given BCG through one of the tubes in my side directly into my pleural cavity. BCG is a drug for immunization therapy. It causes an illness that is similar to tuberculosis; it is easily cured, and it stirs up the immune system against a recurrence of lung cancer. Sure enough, within a few days, I had a very high fever—around 105 degrees . They started me on a pill a day for thirty days At the end of that time, I was all cured of the “TB.”

I spent three weeks in the hospital. My three daughters, Barbara, Nancy and Linda, took weekly turns being with Annette so that she was never exposed to this ordeal alone. Each room on my floor was a private room with an extra sofa bed for a family member to sleep on, if desired. This reemphasizes M.D. Anderson’s belief that cancer is an illness needing family support and the importance of having a caring friend or relative with the patient at all times.

The hospital at M.D. Anderson was only a 400-bed hospital. Yet there were six full-time ministers on duty. Even though I would not classify myself as an extremely religious person, the daily visit by one of the ministers meant a great deal to me.

A retired Houston rabbi, Hyman Schachtel, whom we had met in Kansas City, also called on me every day in the hospital. His visits and his warmth were very meaningful and gave me strength. Get-well cards, letters, flowers and phone calls started pouring in. Each one was treasured. I heard from friends I had long lost contact with. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of letting someone who has cancer know that you are thinking of him and really care.

Probably the most meaningful thing to me was the people who said they’d say a prayer for me. A casual friend in Kansas City told me he said a prayer for me every morning. I figured that, with my prayers and with all these people saying prayers for me, I had to get well.

Two weeks after surgery, the realization of the loss of the use of my right hand and arm hit me. I could not even hold a pencil, let alone write. They sent me to see a physical therapist. He again did an electronic test on my right arm to determine the extent of the nerve damage. He marked about eight red X’s at various points on my right arm. He gave me a machine to use that would send electric shocks when these X’s were touched with electrodes to regenerate the nerves in my arm. If you have ever shocked yourself, you would know what this feels like. My wife had to do it to me for five seconds and rest for five seconds, for 2 1/2 hours twice a day. We were elated on the last day, when the shocks caused the respective finger to quiver.

Three weeks after surgery, I returned to my home in Kansas City, weak, bald, looking as if I had aged ten years, fearful of anyone getting near my sensitive right side, but—alive! The doctor said I would be home to walk my daughter down the aisle. As in everything else he said, he was right.