Meet Charlie.

Charlie is 49 years old. 

He has a great life. 

He also has Colorectal Cancer, Stage III.

Here is his story.

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Charlie grew up in South Boston, Massachusetts, a rather large town located along Dorchester Bay’s beach, to the South and East of Boston proper. Known as “Southie” to its locals, it was once a working-class neighborhood, famous for its strong Irish-American roots, as evident in the countless cathedrals and pubs, as well as some of the oldest housing projects in the United States. 

 

When the City decided to build a Boy’s Club in Southie, the neighborhood became a war zone. The tough kids from the Boy’s Club and the tougher kids from the Projects were always clashing. There was no neutral ground and Southie became a powder keg of violence, poverty and hatred, waiting to implode. The neighborhood was truly divided with the underprivileged D Street Project families living in squalor and the Irish-Catholic families living in decrepit 3-storied asbestos-filled row houses called “triple-deckers.”

 

“Driving home from the market was always an adventure,” says Charlie with a shake of the head. “I would ride in the backseat, peering out the windows, as my father drove, holding a gun in his lap. My head would swivel left to right to make sure I didn’t miss the spectacle that was Southie…prostitutes, gang fights and burning cars from one block to the next. I was also helping my dad look out for carjackers at every traffic light we stopped at.” Patrick, Charlie’s father, was a public city bus driver for the MBTA , driving a crosstown bus 5 days a week, and had seen a thing or two during his career, so he was always prepared for the unexpected.

 

Charlie, his parents, and his two sisters lived in one of the tri-level row houses, with a cozy wood burning stove in the main room. Charlie’s grandparents, Patrick’s folks, lived just two streets away in a beige tri-level that they owned. They bought it cheap, and rented out the top floor to some family members. “I loved having my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins so close by when we were growing up,” says Charlie. We would all look out for one another and play baseball at Joe Moakley Park. We just knew how to keep ourselves busy and out of trouble.”

 

Sadly, Charlie’s aunt Daisy (Patrick’s older sister) passed away in her late thirties from “a caaaancer” after a two-year battle. “Caaaancer” was a word only whispered in hushed tones, without much explanation or eye contact. “Almost like if you said it out loud, you would somehow catch it,” explains Charlie. And so Daisy’s cause of death was never discussed in any detail. “We remembered her fondly…as our aunt Daisy, the one who would spoil us with hard candies from the local shops,” Charlie says smiling.

 

When Charlie came into his adolescence, the family was still living in their apartment, located above an Irish pub called the Shamrock…only a few blocks down the street from the L Street Tavern, made famous in the movie “Good Will Hunting.” Charlie would be heading out for school in the mornings as drunken men would stagger out of the pub, slurring Irish limericks and stinking of last night’s whiskey and Guinness: 

 

“There once was a girl from Cape Code.

Who thought babies were fashioned by God.

But t’was not the Almighty who hiked up her nighty.

T’was a mister who kissed ‘er named Todd!”

 

During the late 1990s, developers began to pay attention to the cheap properties and realized the potential of a neighborhood so close to downtown Boston. Soon enough the construction began, and the poor, low-income families were forced out. As crime virtually disappeared and property values rose, Southie emerged as a yuppie paradise.

 

By that time, Charlie had graduated from Amherst College with a degree in Mathematics. He pursued a career in teaching and found a position in a local middle school. Charlie’s parents remained in Southie and eventually moved into his grandparents’ home during the gentrification so that they could afford life in the new, bustling neighborhood where their roots ran deep.

 

Charlie created a full life for himself. He had a strong moral compass but also managed to be light-hearted, self-deprecating and quite charming. He had an uncanny understanding and appreciation of children, since he grew up with flocks of cousins and friends. As handsome as he was smart, Charlie had a wicked sense of humor and had no trouble attracting young women with his shock of black hair and light blue eyes which earned him the nickname “Newman” (as in Paul Newman) with his buddies. He was a die-hard Red Sox fan and tried to go to as many games as he could afford on a teacher’s salary. However, Charlie’s family hounded him to properly settle down every time they saw him…which he eventually did with a kind, spirited lass named Molly, who was a childhood friend of one of his sisters. 

 

Charlie and Molly knew one another as children in Southie but since she was younger, Charlie never paid her much attention. After finishing college in Sosuth Carolina, Molly returned to Boston and started her career in marketing at a small, local advertising agency. Their adult meet-cute happened when Charlie was rushing to his sister’s birthday party one hot Summer day. He was running late and showed up in a fluster, sweaty and nearly dropping the flowers he was carrying as he burst through the door. 

 

To his surprise, there was no one in the front room except for a ginger-haired young woman with sparkling green eyes.  She was holding a birthday cake and as their gazes locked…“Her eyes pierced right through me,” Charlie recalls. “She just took my breath away. The scrawny little girl with braces grew up to be the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.” Their feelings and relationship developed quickly. They bonded over their upbringing in Southie, coming from large families (she had 5 brothers), their mutual love of the Red Sox and the desire to visit Ireland and learn more about their heritage. 

 

Exactly one year later, Charlie and Molly were married in front of 450 of their closest family and friends at the Seaport World Trade Center on the South Boston waterfront. Molly’s parents spared no expense for the wedding of their only daughter. It was a spectacular night, overflowing with love, tears and laughter… promises made, a future envisioned, a long life intended.  Shortly after a two-week honeymoon to Ireland, the new couple settled into a renovated rental in Southie, near both of their families. They took pride of ownership in their small but charming new apartment and threw a housewarming party where they shocked everyone by announcing they were expecting a baby!  

 

However, before the baby arrived, Charlie’s beloved grandmother, succumbed to cancer. She had been diagnosed the year prior and did not last long. Charlie, being older and more educated than he was when his aunt Daisy died, began to ask questions. He now knew that both women had died from colorectal cancer, and he wondered if their cancers were somehow related…did they have a family history they were not be aware of? Should his father and the rest of the family get screened? How should he broach the subject with them?

 

Since his family didn’t speak about their ancestors or utter the word “cancer,” Charlie was hesitant to dig deeper and create more pain by bringing up the family’s past.  And when his daughter was born, a few months after his grandmother’s funeral, his attention turned to other matters like raising a newborn. He did name the baby girl in honor of his recently-departed grandmother, Nora. And so, life went on.

 

Little Nora was a vibrant girl. She had her mother’s red hair and her father’s dazzling blue eyes. She turned heads wherever she went, and was a curious and friendly little child. Several years later, James and Joseph were born. Twin boys who were as playful, athletic, and as handsome as their father. The boys were sweet and sensitive but a little mischievous, and often caused Molly to break out into a sweat in public places. 

 

Charlie loved telling Nora and the boys stories about life in the old Southie neighborhood and the crazy things he witnessed as a boy when Southie was still rough and tumble. He would point out parks where he learned how to play baseball, the Shamrock Pub which held colorful memories in his mind, the fort on Castle Island, and the street corners where fancy condos now replaced old housing projects. Charlie’s dream was to save enough money to afford a home in Southie for his family of five. 

 

The summer before Nora was entering high school, Charlie and Molly had saved enough to buy a renovated 4-bedroom home in their beloved Southie with a view of the Bay. By this point, Charlie was a much-respected Geometry teacher and baseball coach at the local high school and Molly…a successful Account Director at a digital marketing agency. They were able to be home most evenings for family meals but if they weren’t there was always an aunt or uncle around to watch their kids or have them over for dinner. “That’s the bonus of living next to family…our community is everything to us,” Charlie says! 

 

Around the time that Nora left for college and the boys entered high school, Charlie began experiencing symptoms of what he thought was Irritable Bowl Syndrome. He often felt abdominal pain and had diarrhea multiple times each day. He also started passing gas much more often than usual which became awkward and at times humiliating. Then he noticed blood spotting in his stool.

 

When his condition began to interfere with his teaching schedule, Charlie became frustrated. “I was running to the bathroom multiple times a day in the middle of teaching class. And when we would go out with the family, I always needed to know where the closest bathroom was, in case of an emergency. Once when driving home from work, I didn’t quite make it home, if you know what I mean,” Charlie confesses. When the medication his doctor prescribed failed to work for him, Molly convinced him to see a gastroenterologist who sent him for a colonoscopy.

 

“That’s when the sh!t literally hit the fan,” Charlie half-jokes. He awoke from the colonoscopy to unexpected news. Charlie was diagnosed, on the table, with colorectal cancer, stage III. He decided not to share this information with anyone but Molly as he did not want to alarm his family before gathering additional details and educating himself. 

 

Charlie was recommended to an oncologist at one of Boston’s top hospitals and after a frank discussion, his doctor informed him that it was likely that there was a genetic mutation in his family tree since Charlie’s aunt and grandmother had both succumbed to colon cancer. Genetic testing confirmed that Charlie, indeed, had an inherited genetic mutation for the disease. In fact, colon cancer can run in families, and about one out of three people diagnosed likely has a family history, whether they know it or not.

 

After understanding and discussing his options with his wife and his oncologist, Charlie opted for surgery to remove the section of the colon with cancer (partial colectomy) along with nearby lymph nodes which would be followed by chemotherapy. He thought back to the time after his grandmother Nora passed…when he wondered about a family history of the disease and regretted that he did not investigate more then and open a dialog with his family members.

 

Charlie decided that it was better late than never and to have that conversation ahead of his surgery. It was time, he thought, to raise awareness about the inherited genetic mutation and to share his treatment plan. He also wanted to make sure that his family understood that regular preventative screenings were now going to play a major role in all of their lives. “I stressed the importance of accepting our new reality and how important it is that we support one another and ASK QUESTIONS. The time of secrecy was over, ” Charlie said adamantly. “I made a few ass jokes too which broke a lot of the tension. I mean c’mon, do you know how many people have looked inside my butt already? You can’t take yourself too seriously if you want to survive the embarrassment.”

 

Charlie heads into surgery in a few weeks, and he does so with an entire Southie community in his corner, cheering him on. “They’ve already had two fund-raisers for me, and some of the kids from my school showed up at my door for a surprise trip to a Red Sox game. I count my blessings every day that I was able to expose this family gene that can save my family members, including  my own kids, for generations to come. I’m ready to go to town on this thing,” Charlie says, giving himself a fist pump, like a boxer entering the ring.

 

Charlie is not a cancer patient but rather a person with cancer. He is SO many things greater than his cancer. Charlie has a life worth living for. And so do you!