David Oliver

Our daughter, a palliative care social worker who is ever alert to stories that might interest me, told me about  Prof. David Oliver, a gerontologist at the University of Missouri Medical School, who has been diagnosed with stage four nasal pharyngeal cancer.  Like my metastastic prostate cancer, it’s an illness that can be treated but not cured. 

Using his medical condition as a teaching opportunity, he has created, with the help of his wife, Debra Parker Oliver, a palliative care social worker and an assistant professor at the University of Missouri Medical School, a series of video blogs tracing the course of his illness and its treatment.  These include an announcement of his illness, the shaving of his head prior to chemotherapy, the formidable array of medications he must take, his reactions during the twenty-one days following chemotherapy (steroid-fueled elation and a feeling of strength and invulnerability, followed by crashing and misery and finally a gradual return to normality), his wife’s reactions during the same period of time (his first period is the most troublesome to her, whereas when he’s crashed she can relax), and the importance of social supports.

He’s a big, likeable man, with a sense of humor that’s exemplified by his two “puke buckets” that he emblazed with the insignia of the Oklahoma Sooners and the Kansas Jaywalkers, sports rivals of his beloved University of Missouri.  He bought them prior to his chemotherapy treatments.  So far he’s not had to use them except to collect the plentiful grayish blonde hair that was shaved from his head.

As I watched his video blogs in admiration of his good spirits and his ability to convey what his experience has been like so far, I thought how fortunate I’ve been.  First of all, I lived a lot longer than he has before I found myself with metastasis.  Second, so far I’ve escaped chemotherapy.   I’ll have to face it eventually, if my other ailments haven’t knocked me out before that.  Judging by Dr. Oliver’s report, it won’t be much fun, but I’ll worry about that when the time comes.  And again judging from his report, he finds life well worth living even in the course of this dreaded therapy.  So upwards and onwards for us both.


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