I had never been a pill taker. The Houston surgeon insisted that I take a pain pill every four hours after surgery. That was five a day, each containing one grain of codeine. He explained that the surgery had left a great deal of scar tissue in my shoulder. A little pain medication taken regularly, before pain and the resulting tension started, would keep me relatively free of pain and allow me to heal faster.

Again, I am not a pill taker. Twice-once in July on our way to Bermuda and a second time in August at home-I tried to break the habit. Both times, on the second day, the pain was intolerable and I had to go back to using the codeine.

On my next regular visit to Houston, the doctor recommended that I see the M.D. Anderson Tumor Clinic staff psychologist. We visited him on the afternoon of my departure. I explained that I didn't believe in psychiatrists or psychologists. I felt that I was an intelligent individual and was able to control my thoughts without help.

He started off by saying that since I was leaving that afternoon, he would be unable to treat me, so he would like to tell me a story. Subconsciously, this established my confidence in him, since he could have no personal motive.

He told me to picture myself walking across Main Street with a tremendously sore leg. Each step means excruciating pain. I am barely able to hop. In the middle of Main Street, I glance up and suddenly see a huge truck coming at me at 60 mph. What happens? Suddenly, I have no pain and I am easily able to run the rest of the way across the street to avoid being hit by the truck. When I reach the curb and stop, the pain is back in full force. What does this prove? The mind is capable of turning off pain if it wants to.

He recommended that when we got back to Kansas City, we find a psychologist who treats pain.

My wife made numerous phone calls and did a great deal of research. She made an appointment for me with a doctor. He explained that pain was a combination of two factors: tension and physical hurt. If I could learn to relax and get rid of tension, the pain would be less severe. I always thought of myself as a very relaxed person, but I did not know the true meaning of the word.

On the first visit, he taught me how to relax. I was to lie or sit in a comfortable position, close my eyes and say to myself that each part of the body is relaxed. For example, my forehead is relaxed, my eyebrows are relaxed, my eyes are relaxed, and so forth down to the toes. Then I was to picture myself floating into an absolutely quiet room and from there floating into a beautiful garden with a quiet lake and the sun streaming through the trees and then lying in the grass surrounded by the aroma of fresh flowers.

Believe me, after this you are really relaxed. I was to do this every morning when I woke up and every night before I went to bed. Usually when I went to bed, I never got out of the first room, as I fell asleep from being so relaxed.

On my second visit a week later, the doctor attempted to use hypnosis to stop the pain. It did not work. The third week he tried again without success.

On the fourth week, after relaxing me, he asked me to think of the most beautiful thought I could imagine and tell him what it was. I said it was my wife's love for me. He then said my body was filling with my wife's love for me and repeated that it was completely filling my entire body. I took my good left hand and placed it on the left side of my chest and rubbed it across to my right shoulder forcing my wife's love for me into the right shoulder and all the pain out. It worked.

From the time I left the doctor's office that day, I never took another pain pill. Whenever my shoulder started hurting, I thought of my wife's love for me and forced it up into my right shoulder and instantly the pain was gone.

As I have mentioned, friends are wonderful to have. It was through such a friend, Alfred Lighton, that I met a physical therapist who was to do much to change my life.

After surgery, I had been left with no muscular control in my right hand and arm. Even after hours of shock treatment, I could not move a finger on its own or raise my arm above my shoulder. With the help of my other hand, I could only slightly bend each finger or move my wrist. I had made the idle boast to the Houston surgeon that I would play tennis again in spite of his saying otherwise.

The M.D. Anderson physical therapist cautioned that I could atrophy and permanently lose the use of my muscles if I didn't attend to it right away. That scared me into wasting no time making inquiries.

The physical therapist we found in Kansas City came to my house first thing in the morning for an hour, three times a week, to work with me. Her method was superb. She never touched me. She made me want to do things myself and do them until they hurt. She was a tough, but gentle and patient woman. After she left each time, I was to repeat the therapy several times before her return.

The first two weeks were spent just trying to bend the fingers of my right hand. Each time, I'd say there was no possibility that a finger would bend any more, she'd have me compare it to the other hand. I would then continue to painfully press further. She would strap weights on my arm, stand me in front of a mirror, and make me raise my arm. After a month, we cut her visits down to once a week because she said I had the drive and desire and could practice on my own.

One week, without her knowledge and to surprise her, I took my tennis racket out to the court. I was able to hold it but not raise it. I would stand in front of the backboard for thirty minutes at a time, hitting tennis balls against the backboard from three or four feet away with my racket like a pendulum. After a few weeks of this, I was gradually able to move further back, raise my racket higher and grip it tighter.

After another month, she dismissed me. She said I was one of her outstanding successes. I had achieved total mobility of my arm, wrist and fingers. The strength, as much as possible, would come back in time.

I realized, though, that I was not as strong and would never be so on the tennis court. Therefore, I would have to make up for it with accuracy and strategy. I got a larger racket and practiced placing shots; I now believe my game is as good today as it ever was, if not a shade better.

After surgery the doctor told me that because he had to remove nerves from my shoulder, my right side would no longer perspire. I would have to keep my right arm covered whenever I was in the sun because it would burn without perspiration being able to cool it. Some two years later, completely to his surprise and ours, my arm suddenly started perspiring again. What a weird thing to get excited about. No one shaking hands with me or looking at me would ever know that my right arm was impaired. Today, the inside of my arm down through my little finger is numb, and I do not have the strength to open some twist-off jar caps. These trivial things are a small price to pay for having conquered cancer.